The scrapped FIA intervention that would have wiped out 75% of Austria track limit penalties

Michelle Foster 07 Jul 2023 2:00 PM

Red Bull's Max Verstappen in action at the Red Bull Ring. Spielberg, June 2023.

Max Verstappen has revealed a double width painted white line at the Red Bull Ring could have prevented a whole lot of heart ache, and penalties, for his rival drivers.

Alas rain on Saturday night put paid to the FIA’s plans to do just that.

Last Sunday Formula 1 raced at the Red Bull Ring with Verstappen claiming the Austrian Grand Prix win by some five seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc while further behind them chaos ensued – after the race.

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

Post-race penalties galore for Austrian GP track limits violations

Aston Martin protested the race result after Verstappen’s win with the stewards sitting down to look at no fewer than 1,200 laps to see what, who, when and how the drivers dealt with the track limits.

It resulted in nine drivers being penalised and a whole lot of mockery coming down on F1’s shoulders.

“It just doesn’t look good for us with the solution we have at the moment and also that the race result is again changed because of new evidence with the onboards, you know it’s a little bit ridiculous,” Verstappen admitted to the media including PlanetF1.com.

It, however, could’ve been a very different story had the rain not fallen overnight with the championship leader revealing that put paid to the FIA’s plans to double the width of the white lines.

Verstappen spoke with race director Neils Wittich after a qualifying session in which he had lap times deleted in Q1 and Q2 about a possible solution.

“There was a response,” he confirmed. “I spoke to Niels, they were going to paint the white lines a bit wider but they couldn’t because of the rain, so that was just unlucky because of the weather.

“I think with the new guidelines we have they really want to stick to the white-line rule, which is fine, but we definitely need at some track a bit of a better solution for running wide.

“For us, it’s fine to put the gravel there, but for the circuit as well having to host other kinds of races, it’s a lot of money.

“[Painting the lines wider] like they did in Barcelona, Turn 12 on the exit – double the width basically, which would have helped. For me, looking at people who were going off, it would have helped probably like 75 percent of the cases.”

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Verstappen, though, didn’t have to count himself amongst those 75% with the race winner holding such an advantage over the chasing pack that he could be cautious.

“I mean to be fair in the race for me it was a bit easier because you’re not pushing the limit as you are in qualifying to the high speed corners,” he said.

“But I do think we can do a better job with that.

“The problem is if it was only a Formula 1 track it would be easy to adjust it but we have to share it with MotoGP and they want a different thing than us.”