Whiting to ‘open everybody’s eyes’ at FIA seminar

Formula 1 race director Charlie Whiting is keen to see all FIA championships learn from each other at a seminar in Geneva with new ideas on governing track limits discussed.

Whiting has opened the second annual FIA race director seminar which hosted 70 race directors from FIA championships and other international series ahead of the International Stewards Seminar held this weekend in Geneva.

The F1 race director, who also acts as the FIA’s director of the single-seater department, spoke alongside FIA safety director and F1 assistant race director Laurent Mekies to encourage participants to share their experiences and knowledge to improve individual championships ahead of 2018.

Whiting presented changes to the International Sporting Code plus other elements including track limits which F1 has continually come under fire with in recent seasons. The issue came to a head at last year’s United States Grand Prix when Max Verstappen’s last-lap pass on Kimi Raikkonen was penalised for an abuse of track limits which denied the Red Bull driver a podium finish.

Despite a driver debate and press conference to clear up the issue at the following race in Mexico the subject of track limits remains a grey area for F1 with the continued use of tarmac run-offs at a number of circuits.

Whiting has been eager to encourage all series to learn from each other to improve decision-making in the future.

“I think the most important thing about this seminar is to open everybody’s eyes to different ways of doing things,” Whiting said. “There is almost always more than one way to correctly do things right and the right course of action depends on many factors.

“There are not only series or championship-specific approaches that might be of benefit elsewhere but you also have people saying ‘that’s a good idea, we could use that in our series’.”