Whiting defends stewards actions on track limit issue after Verstappen controversy

FIA race director Charlie Whiting has laid out how his team has been working on resolving the issues surrounding track limits as an explanation to the controversial penalty Max Verstappen was handed after the United States Grand Prix.

Verstappen called the race stewards at the Circuit of the Americas “idiots” after he was handed a post-race five-second time penalty for going off track while overtaking Kimi Raikkonen to snatch third place on the final lap.

F1 has come under fire for not having defined track limit rules as Whiting defended the race stewards decision on Verstappen and has explained how his team is aiming resolve the ongoing issue.

“The approach we need to take is to make it easy to explain to everybody,” Whiting said. “If a driver goes off we don’t need to have a second look at it. That is the goal.

“In the F1 Strategy Group just after Hockenheim last year I identified at all the circuits we race on 19 corners on which we had problems – turn 17 at Austin wasn’t one of them – and we’ve gradually worked and developed on all the kerbs at these corners to try and contain things. I think at all the circuits we’ve been to so far this year there has been less concern about track limits. We are getting there but we still have a little way to go.

“It would be far better if we could come up with a system or procedure on the circuit which could be unambiguous about whether a driver gained an advantage or not. This is down to kerbs and we are working very carefully and systematically through the problem with corners to make sure if a driver goes off it will not be quicker.”

Quizzed on why the race stewards aren’t taking a hard and fast approach to the problem of track limits, having seen Verstappen penalised while a number of other drivers escaped punishment for similar incidents during the United States Grand Prix, Whiting says tolerance is needed until a problem-free system is settled upon.

“My personal belief is that if you don’t take a tolerant approach then you will be forever reporting drivers as they go off multiple times during a race,” he said. “You will have to keep very keen eye on every corner of every lap.

“If we had discussions on all points we would have a long line outside the stewards office waiting to discuss why they’ve been penalised. I don’t think F1 needs that and that is why the F1 Strategy Group wanted to develop rules to avoid that.”