Russell says driving guidelines are not “rocket science” Picture @tinnekephotography
A discussion of Formula 1 driving guidelines in Qatar on Thursday evening focussed on overtaking on the inside.
The consensus that the driver making a pass on the inside should be allowed to run a rival wide, as long as he stays within the confines of the track.
GPDA director George Russell said that it was “not rocket science” to accept that as standard practice.
Drivers also highlighted how track layouts and run-off areas are the main issue in allowing cars to run wide without penalty.
The meeting was scheduled several weeks ago to give the drivers a chance to air their views about the guidelines, which were placed firmly in the spotlight by a rash of incidents and penalties in Austin and Mexico.
With race director Niels Wittich having been sacked in the interim it was also the first chance for the drivers to discuss the subject at length with his replacement, Rui Marques.
GPDA director George Russell said that the discussion had been a positive one.
“It was pretty productive,” said Russell. “I think we all agree the guidelines, they don’t need massive changes. I think we just need the odd sentence removed or adjusted. But I think everybody’s clear with what happened in Austin, what should have been a penalty. What happened in Mexico was rightly penalised.
“And generally speaking, over the course of the year, I think the decisions have been pretty good. It was just probably Austin that was the outlier. So just fine tweaks.”
Russell said that the consensus was that a driver overtaking on the inside should be allowed to run a rival wide, as long as he stays within the confines of the track.
“The discussion was mainly about overtaking,” he said. “I don’t want to go into detail what was what was spoken about, but I think a lot of drivers are aligned that if you are the overtaking car on the inside, rule number one is you have to be able to stay on the circuit.
“If you’re able to stay on the circuit, you are in your right to run the driver wide, as it has been for all of us since go karts. If you’re overtaking somebody on the inside, you’ve got the right to run them wide.
“And we also concluded that most of these issues are down to the circuits. We spoke about a number of issues in in Austin.
“I think a lot of the overtakes wouldn’t have even been attempted had there been gravel there, such as Austria Turn 4, the downhill right hander, you know you’re going to go in the gravel if you go one or two per cent over the limit.
“Silverstone at Stowe, obviously a great racing a couple of years ago, with Lewis and Checo and Charles, ultimately, everyone was off the track, but that’s because the track allowed you. The circuits are the root cause, and the guidelines are kind of like an interim fix that we need to agree on until we can get all of the circuits in a proper manner.”
He added: “Everyone’s in agreement, to be honest. I know there was maybe a bit of disagreement when we had the meeting in Mexico, but I think that was probably just a bit of self-protection.
“I don’t think it’s rocket science, I think we all feel the same way. If you’re overtaking on the inside and you make the corner and you’re not running off, it’s your corner, and you want to see hard racing.
“You want to see drivers battling wheel-to-wheel. It looks awesome when people are going through the gravel and sparks being flown up. And I think the stewards recognise that.
“If you’re on the outside being overtaken, it’s on you to yield. And right now there is a line of a regulation that says the inside driver needs to leave room to the guy on the outside from the apex to the exit, and I think that’s going to be getting binned off, and I hope it’s going to be from this weekend onwards.”
Russell stress that track design remains the key issue.
“I think the overtaking rules on the outside will not be changing much,” he said. “And I don’t think we’ve really seen much of a problem, as I said, on my personal view, generally this year, I think it’s worked.
“It’s just the issues that came up in Austin were obviously highlighted quite a lot, but ultimately it came down to the same fact, which was the circuit allows you to do that.
“If you take Max’s example of how late he braked into the corner, he wouldn’t do that in a corner that has gravel on the outside, because the risk to yourself is too great.
“Whereas when you’ve got tarmac on the outside, the risk is you just run a bit wide, and you get a track limits warning. So that’s going to change now.”
Max Verstappen also agreed that track layouts was the main issue when it came to overtaking.
“We still need, for sure, a few more discussions about certain things,” said the Dutchman when asked by this writer about the meeting.
“But I think it more has to do with the track layouts. “Some places just have a lot of run-off, and that creates already a lot of issues. So that’s something that we have to work on for the future.
“The main problem is the track that allows these kinds of things. So if you have gravel, that naturally stops you from doing things, taking a bit more risk than normal.”
Lewis Hamilton welcomed the opportunity for the drivers to air their views on the subject.
“It’s very complex, because all these different corners, so many different scenarios,” said the Mercedes driver.
“They don’t have an easy job at all. I think it helps us all sitting with them, having a discussion. In their minds this year it has been better in terms of consistency, but obviously everyone wants it to be perfect.
“But until you have those discussions for them to fully understand from where we’re sitting, from where we’re fighting, what we’re fighting for, and where what we think is right or wrong in certain scenarios, it’s good for them to hear and for us to work on real clear guidelines so that also from in the car you know exactly what you have.”
Adam Cooper F1 