Verstappen critical of F1's track limits rule: ‘It’s been a bit of a joke

Verstappen, who finished in second place at the Red Bull Ring, was one of many drivers warned by the stewards for exceeding track limits.

There were 43 recorded cases across the 71-lap race in Austria, while a handful of drivers were hit with five-second penalties for excessive abuse.

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A number of drivers were impacted in Friday’s qualifying, most notably Sergio Perez, who had all of his Q3 laps and final Q2 deleted after the FIA missed his initial offence in the second segment.

F1 has deployed a stricter policy with how it monitors track limits in 2022, headed by the two new race directors, Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich.

Regardless of whether a driver gains a lasting advantage or not, should someone put four wheels beyond the white line, then their lap is invalidated.

Asked for his view on the stewarding situation in F1, Verstappen said on Sunday in Austria: “Of course everyone has their own opinions about certain things, but like track limits, I think track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not only in F1 but in F2 and F3. 

“It's easy to say from the outside, yeah, but you have to just stay within the white lines. It sounds very easy, but it's not because when you go that quick through a corner and some of them are a bit blind, if you have a bit more understeer, tyres are wearing, it's easy to just go over the white line, but do we actually gain time? 

“Maybe yes, maybe not. And to be honest, there's only two or three corners where you can really just go a bit wider. And yeah, I don't think we should have this value on one mill over that's a penalty or whatever. Then just add a wall or put some gravel back where we… like Turn 6 on the exit. I think that's great because there is gravel, you punish yourself if you go wide.”

Verstappen thinks the over-policing of track limits is tarnishing the sport’s image.

“So these are things where we have to look into how we can make it better because also for the stewards and just the people involved with checking these track limits, I mean it's almost impossible to check these kind of things because you need what… almost like one guy on one car the whole race to check the whole lap if he's not going outside of the white line, where on this track, at least, in some places, you get naturally penalised if you just you know go a bit wider and you touch the gravels. 

“These kind of things, I think it just doesn't look good for the sport as well and this is just one thing.”

“It’s a bit stupid”

Lando Norris also felt that the monitoring of track limits went too far in Sunday’s race.

Norris was hit with a five-second penalty for it, which cost him in his battle with Mick Schumacher for sixth.

“You can’t see the white lines, it’s just guessing and I’m obviously not good enough at guessing,” Norris explained.

“I think when I really had to be I could be, it’s just you’ve got to back off a bit, so it’s more about risk reward in a way.

“But even sometimes, like I got a warning from Turn 1 and it was just a complete mistake, I lost time, so when you look at it that way, I can say it’s a bit stupid. I’ve locked up, I’ve hit the exit kerb, I’ve lost like three or four-tenths. So it’s not like not punishing me for the last corner where you just commit to running off and gaining an advantage.

“This was just me making mistakes. So I don’t feel like I should be punished for it.”

Schumacher reckons it could be a bigger issue next time out at the Circuit Paul Ricard, given its sizeable run-off areas.

“It does look a bit silly if for going a centimetre of track you get a penalty of five seconds, and most of the time when you go off you don’t gain any lap time, which is worse,” Schumacher said.

“It’s something to be discussed, something to see if we can improve it for the next event because I think in Paul Ricard especially it will be a big concern.”