Oscar Piastri names the one rule change he would like F1 to make

Sam Cooper 2023年8月11日9:00 PM

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc crashed at Monaco.

Oscar Piastri wants those who cause red flags in qualifying to see their lap deleted as punishment for costing others their chance.

Over the last few years, we have seen a number of pole sitters hold on to their place as a result of a well-timed red flag.

But Piastri wants to see that rule changed and instead punish those who cause the red flag, a rule plenty of other series have already adopted.

Oscar Piastri wants qualifying red flags punished

One of the most notable examples of this came in 2021 when Charles Leclerc secured his first Monaco pole after his crash prevented Max Verstappen from setting a flying lap.

Unluckily for Leclerc, he was unable to start Sunday’s race due to undiscovered issues and Verstappen would again be cursing a driver when his own team-mate Sergio Perez crashed in Q3 of the 2022 Monaco race.

Piastri, who came within 0.011 seconds from beating Verstappen to the sprint pole in Spa, suggested a rule change would make situations like this no longer possible.

“A lot of other series have the ‘if you cause a red flag in qualifying, you get your lap deleted’ rule. I think that would be good,”he told the P1 podcast. “I’ve been in series where that’s been the case and I think it just gets rid of a lot of ambiguity on was it accidentally on purpose.

“It also just punishes you a bit for making a mistake. So I think that could be a good rule.”

PlanetF1.com建议

F1 driver contracts – What is the current contract status of every driver on the 2023 grid?

F1 2023 drivers by age – From the oldest to the youngest

The suggestion is nothing new and Piastri not the first to say it, going back to 2021 Toto Wolff said series in the US, who have a similar rule, were being “intelligent”

“Certainly it’s a good story that Charles is in pole in Monaco” Wolff said with a smile. “It’s even better that Charles in on pole than Max. I don’t want to go that far.

“I didn’t know that that was the rule in the US but I think it’s an intelligent rule that would avoid confusion.

“By any means I don’t think that Charles put it in the wall [deliberately] today, because there’s just too much at stake.

“But it would be a nice little incentive to make sure that the polemic that such a situation provokes is out of question, is not happening because nobody would doubt it.”