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George Russell’s pole position in Austria created controversy as the Mercedes driver passed Max Verstappen’s crashed Red Bull during his flying lap, which race control opted to cover with only a single yellow flag. That meant Russell was able to lift briefly then continue and set his lap time.
A similar situation arose in the last round at the Hungaroring: again Verstappen caused a yellow flag, this time Andrea Kimi Antonelli passed by it and set his quickest time in Q3, but he was penalised for not backing off sufficiently.
But should Formula 1 be allowing drivers to improve their qualifying times at all when they pass yellow flags? AlanD is concerned:
This is a very unsatisfactory approach.
Either they say a single yellow flag is advisory and leave it to the drivers to drive whatever speed they want, (and that is a bad idea), or they stop messing about and say we’ll just go straight to double yellows in future, and if you pass through the yellow section your lap time isn’t going to count no matter what, so get off that throttle.
It may sound harsh, but the point of safety regs is to protect drivers and marshals. This shouldn’t be about how fast you are allowed to go whilst claiming you were complying with the regs.
AlanD
Read the full discussion here:
Why Mercedes believe Antonelli was especially unlucky with his grid penalty
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