re: 2024 Formula 1 season Thread

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I don’t know the right answer. Most races have more pit stops to take the time penalties.

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There's no right answer, but they have to keep striving for fairness.

The problem I have with the current system is illustrated by what we saw today, and it comes down to these two issues:

1. It's really hard to pass in F1. The drivers have said that they might be pacing close to 1 second a lap faster than the guy in front of him, but he still might not be able to pass, depending on the track.

2. If you incur a 5-sec penalty early in the race and there was some way to instantly move you 5 seconds back, you might lose 10 places. If you can wait until your next pit stop 15 laps later, you will lose fewer places as the field has spread out. If you've already done your last pit stop and there's 40 laps to go, then you can change the race from a position you're not even supposed to be in.

I think a reasonable improvement to the rule is that you must pit within 10 laps of incurring a time penalty, unless you're within maybe 15 laps to the end of the race.

I'm not knocking Haas for playing to the rules perfectly. It's great to see a good race day performance under Komatsu.

However, the penalty occurred early in the race and Albon, K-Mag's first victim, was victimized again as he was denied the point that Hulk got.

Edit: Oh, also K-Mag's second penalty was for putting all four wheels off the track passing Yuki. In IndyCar if you make an illegitimate pass, you have to give the position back, and sometimes the driver will give back the position before even being ordered to. F1 should be the same. It's easy, if the victim is still just behind you, you give the position back within a couple of laps. If the guy has fallen further back behind others, only then does a 5-sec penalty apply (but within 10 laps as I suggest above).