McLaren drivers call for stricter penalties

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris fear yesterday’s sprint in Austin has set a precedent allowing drivers to deliberately exceed track limits when overtaking, as the 5-second penalty can be regained if you have a fast enough car.

On the third lap, George Russell overtook Piastri at Turn 15 and moved up to 7th, while clearly going off track. For this, the Mercedes driver was penalized, losing one position, but still earning a bonus point, as he was classified 8th.

“I didn’t really follow him because he was behind me,” Oscar said after the finish. “I saw a replay of this episode, Russell just accelerated when he was off the track and ahead of me. The five penalty seconds he received affected the outcome of his race, but not by much.

You can take actions like that if you have a faster car, and I don’t think that’s right.”

Later, Alex Albon also breached track limits, ahead of Piastri, but escaped punishment. However, the Australian has no objection to that episode, as the situation was somewhat different and the Williams driver acted more correctly.

“In George’s case, the front fender of his car wasn’t even level with my rear wheel. In Alex’s case, we were already driving wheel to wheel,” says Oscar. “He had the right to stay in the outer radius. I tried to get him to move as much as possible, but he managed to continue the maneuver and in this case I don’t see any problems at all.”

But with George everything was clear and the stewards punished him. The only question is whether the amount of the fine has been chosen correctly and whether this does not set a precedent for the future.”

Piastri explained that he was not inclined to accuse Russell of deliberately breaking the rules, but at the same time called his opponent’s actions “a blatant example”: “If they only give a 5 second penalty for this, especially during a longer race , then this suits you very well, if it allows you to stay ahead of slower cars. Therefore, it is possible for someone to act deliberately…”

Norris supported his partner: “Such things were repeatedly discussed during pilot briefings. We bring up this topic every time, and in Barcelona George did it personally, drawing attention to the fact that in the first corner you can take the outside track and, by leaving the track, get ahead of two cars at the same time. We saw some drivers take similar action in Sochi in Turn 2.

We can prepare for such maneuvers in advance, and I am sure that we will eventually come to the conclusion that people commit them deliberately. We discussed exactly this problem, because if you are faster you can get ahead of someone outside the track and then easily create a 5 second lead. In Monaco, for example, when you cut the chicane.

The FIA ​​​​then said to us: “Okay, in such situations we will require the driver to give back the position.” But now a precedent has been set where even this was not necessary. So if I battle with the Ferrari drivers in Sunday’s race, I’ll just overtake them that way, if that can only be punished with a five-second penalty. I can gain back five seconds.

Overall we see another example of inconsistency, which surprises me a bit as I thought the stewards had clear instructions on how to act in such situations. But it turned out that this was not the case.

I think the fines in general should be stricter and a precedent should be set, rather than constantly reviewing the fine system. I think that’s the most important thing.”