F1 drivers face tougher penalties

[Daniel]

Further to what I said above, what about Kobayashi? I don't recall any particular move where he put himself or others in any special amount of danger yet this man was responsible for a lot of overtaking and a lot of excitement. Nobody wants to see F1 sanitised, but Kobayashi is living proof that it needn't be.

[Sonic]

We also saw some fantastic racing like Jenson and Lewis in Turkey where two drivers pushed each other and made for exciting racing but were obviously also very respectful of each other.

True. We don't want to see an end to this.

[Cooper_S]

your missing my point...

When was the last F1 fatality (or even serious injury) attributed to drivers racing against each other to aggressively, as opposed to crashing in practice or because of car failure... I've only been watching F1 since the 1986 season and in that time I do not recall one, maybe someone else will know the answer.

[Daniel]

True. We don't want to see an end to this.

Why should this mean the end of skillful exchanges like this?

Nothing that Jenson or Lewis did in those few laps is likely to have been under scrutiny. Ditto Kobyashi for most of the season too

I think it's irrelevant to point out the last fatality was 16 years ago and wasn't attributed to drivers racing each other as such. We're always potentially just 1 race away from a fatality and IMHO a number of times this year we saw behaviour which seemed to suggest that some drivers didn't respect the welfare of other drivers as much as they should.

[BDunnell]

Why should this mean the end of skillful exchanges like this?

Nothing that Jenson or Lewis did in those few laps is likely to have been under scrutiny. Ditto Kobyashi for most of the season too

The examples you pick are good ones, but recent evidence has suggested that hard racing is still likely to be penalised. I still feel the penalty meted out to Hamilton at Spa in 2008 was absolutely absurd, for example. There is a reason why the Schumacher/Barrichello incident this year attracted such opprobrium, including from people who've been around F1 for years — it was on another level of recklessness compared to most.

[Daniel]

The examples you pick are good ones, but recent evidence has suggested that hard racing is still likely to be penalised. I still feel the penalty meted out to Hamilton at Spa in 2008 was absolutely absurd, for example. There is a reason why the Schumacher/Barrichello incident this year attracted such opprobrium, including from people who've been around F1 for years — it was on another level of recklessness compared to most.

Lets be fair. Hamilton's penalty in 2008 wasn't absolutely absurd, he cut the chicane, gained an advantage and whilst giving back some of the advantage, used it to overtake Kimi! But lets not reopen that old can of worms.

If the penalties that are currently given out were to be kept the same then it merely makes it uncomfortably likely that someone is going to get hurt in the future and I think that's something which should be taken seriously.

Accidents can happen and I seem to remember Liuzzi almost accidently took Schumachers head off in the last race, stuff like that can happen just by accident on a crowded track and we need to accept that, but when stuff goes beyond that then I think race bans need to be handed out.

[SGWilko]

Schumacher on Rubens though to be fair as someone pointed out, Michael did at least leave Rubens room

Seriously, I do not think a single ply tissue's width should be taken as sufficient room.......

[Daniel]

Seriously, I do not think a single ply tissue's width should be taken as sufficient room.......

I agree, but just enough room is better than 99.99999% enough room

If things were the way I think they should be then Schumacher would have got a race ban for what he did. Docking points or a grid drop is BS IMHO. You've allowed the fool out there on the track, give him a proper punishment and make him stand in the garage while 20+ other people who respect each other battle it out.

[ioan]

I've got mixed feelings about this. There are already existing rules that cover driving standards but the issue has been the inconsistent application of those rules and the differing penalties applied at different times. Creating more rules does not solve that issue.

Bingo!!! Very well put.

[ioan]

...while 20+ other people who respect each other battle it out.

Have I missed it and we will have 100 cars at the start of a race next season?!