2022 Monaco Grand Prix - Monte Carlo, May 27 - 29

[Big Tea]

So according to racefans, this was the rule last year, and it was changed.

From this:

“Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the stewards), any line painted on the track at the pit exit for the purpose of separating cars leaving the pits from those on the track must not be crossed by any part of a car leaving the pits.” (Emphasis added.)

To this:

“Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the stewards), any tyre of a car exiting the pit lane must not cross any line painted on the track at the pit exit for the purpose of separating cars leaving the pit lane from those on the track.” (Emphasis added.)

According to this change, the stewards are right in not penalizing Verstappen.

However, the rule change itself is as braindead as it gets. It is far, far easier to judge from footage whether a tyre touches an outboard line or not, rather than a line that has been fully crossed by the tire, and now is in inboard in relation to the car.

What part of a car can possibly cross the line without the tyre crossing it first? Unless your at 90* angle to the line. Its physically impossible since the wheels are the widest point of the car.

The key word is still in the 2021 ruling......CROSSED.

Just like in football....you dont score a goal if the ball doesnt CROSS the goal line.

But the ref calls it if any part of you, shoe elbow knee etc touches the touchline by the smallest amount. Same in tennis and most other sports, touching the line is over the line. ("chalk dust" etc)

[chrisc90]

So according to racefans, this was the rule last year, and it was changed.

From this:


To this:


According to this change, the stewards are right in not penalizing Verstappen.

However, the rule change itself is as braindead as it gets. It is far, far easier to judge from footage whether a tyre touches an outboard line or not, rather than a line that has been fully crossed by the tire, and now is in inboard in relation to the car.

What part of a car can possibly cross the line without the tyre crossing it first? Unless your at 90* angle to the line. Its physically impossible since the wheels are the widest point of the car.

The key word is still in the 2021 ruling......CROSSED.

Just like in football....you dont score a goal if the ball doesnt CROSS the goal line.

But the ref calls it if any part of you, shoe elbow knee etc touches the touchline by the smallest amount. Same in tennis and most other sports, touching the line is over the line. ("chalk dust" etc)

Itll probably be another clarification of the rule re-written at the end of the season to any part of the tyre touching the line.

Personally, I think there is more in the corner cutting at Turn 7 than there was at the pits. Watching onboards there was a LOT of cars cutting that corner using the pavement.

[Big Tea]

What part of a car can possibly cross the line without the tyre crossing it first? Unless your at 90* angle to the line. Its physically impossible since the wheels are the widest point of the car.

The key word is still in the 2021 ruling......CROSSED.

Just like in football....you dont score a goal if the ball doesnt CROSS the goal line.

But the ref calls it if any part of you, shoe elbow knee etc touches the touchline by the smallest amount. Same in tennis and most other sports, touching the line is over the line. ("chalk dust" etc)

Itll probably be another clarification of the rule re-written at the end of the season to any part of the tyre touching the line.

Personally, I think there is more in the corner cutting at Turn 7 than there was at the pits. Watching onboards there was a LOT of cars cutting that corner using the pavement.

TBH personally I am not concerned either way about the result of the protest, just that it is another fudge and is left to a closed room to decide without making sure the next time it is questioned the answer will be the same.

[Michelangelo]

Isn't it harsh to expect a penalty for touching a line under conditions of a damp Monaco, cold tyres and a slippery side out of the racing line. No matter which driver, driving which car.

[dialtone]

Isn't it harsh to expect a penalty for touching a line under conditions of a damp Monaco, cold tyres and a slippery side out of the racing line. No matter which driver, driving which car.

I don't want to enter the discussion, but they are the only team that did it, so it's not too hard to do if Latifi can do it.

[Shrieker]

Isn't it harsh to expect a penalty for touching a line under conditions of a damp Monaco, cold tyres and a slippery side out of the racing line. No matter which driver, driving which car.

Go slower.

I don't want to enter the discussion, but they are the only team that did it, so it's not too hard to do if Latifi can do it.

Exactly...

[turbof1]

The rules are written in a way that allows for interpretation. If the rule makers wanted it to be clear cut, then they could make it that any tyre-to-line contact was "crossing". Or that having the outermost part of the tyre vertically overlie a plane in the middle of the painted line was crossing, or various other scenarios.

I interpret it that they "crossed" the line in the same way that drivers cut corners but haven't left the track. I don't think they really gained significantly (not speaking as a RB fan), so it's a question of whether to penalise for the letter of the law being broken if that's the case.

As always, we just want consistency and it's always lacking. And they appear to have failed to account for other events that had a greater impact on the final race order, what can you do

We are talking about a 10cm wide stripe here. Try defining all the different stripes in the rules to the exact edge or an exact location on its surface. That is frankly way over the top and overshoots the goal. The intent here is to keep pit exit traffic separated from the racing traffic.

I would agree with you if this was a discussion about a technical regulation. Regarding sporting regulation, I think the interpretation with the most common sense was given to the involved rule. I do not think we had such a case yet, where a driver touches the line but does not cross it. Can't be consistent on things that happen for the first time.

Yes, I think we are in agreement although perhaps that didn't come across in what I wrote.

My preference (possibly as a result of my job) would be to define what is meant by crossing, but I agree that a strict application of the rule in this case is not justified by the overall intention of the rule.

I think the difficulty comes in where a grey area of a rule is exploited further and further as a result of initial lack of defined limits, until there's an incident where they are forced to decide where the (metaphorical) line actually is to set a precedent that should in reality should have been defined in the rule in the first place.

If the goal is to separate pit exit traffic from race traffic, perhaps no tyres should be allowed to touch the line from either side? And then there are the edge cases like race start and so on...

Sorry if I've not really added anything here. It just feels more frustrating to have an unclear rule instead of no rule at all.

No need to apologize. Never walk away from a good debate .And yes, maybe they should clarify it now that it has happened.

my 2 cents on this: I must say after I saw the helpful piece made by racefans, that the ruling last year was more clear in that regard. Maybe they changed the wording to consider bodywork parts that drivers have difficulty viewing whether or not it is within bounds or not. The wording is more vague now. Again, within that vagueness one should be given the benefit of the doubt.

[langedweil]

On the line, over the line .. stewards have spoken, that's done and dusted.
Aside from that it was just strategy that cost Fer dearly today, strategy that didn't work out. Still think it was a just good call from Sai to wait and switch to slicks from full wets, he just didn't have a stonking outlap. And while Latifi didnt really help, that in itself wasnt really the issue I think. I'd say (but who am I) it was the loss of about 1s at the swimming pool area, combined with a little too careful outlap that blew in his face.
Sorry for him, he kinda needs his first win, but Per drove well and consistent; well deserved P1.

I do not understand the 5s for Oco though; Ham did some sort of a Copse by touching Oco's right read with his left front; nowhere near to owning that corner.

Well, off to Baku & Can .. I'd say two favorable RB tracks.

[Watto]

We are talking about a 10cm wide stripe here. Try defining all the different stripes in the rules to the exact edge or an exact location on its surface. That is frankly way over the top and overshoots the goal. The intent here is to keep pit exit traffic separated from the racing traffic.

I would agree with you if this was a discussion about a technical regulation. Regarding sporting regulation, I think the interpretation with the most common sense was given to the involved rule. I do not think we had such a case yet, where a driver touches the line but does not cross it. Can't be consistent on things that happen for the first time.

Yes, I think we are in agreement although perhaps that didn't come across in what I wrote.

My preference (possibly as a result of my job) would be to define what is meant by crossing, but I agree that a strict application of the rule in this case is not justified by the overall intention of the rule.

I think the difficulty comes in where a grey area of a rule is exploited further and further as a result of initial lack of defined limits, until there's an incident where they are forced to decide where the (metaphorical) line actually is to set a precedent that should in reality should have been defined in the rule in the first place.

If the goal is to separate pit exit traffic from race traffic, perhaps no tyres should be allowed to touch the line from either side? And then there are the edge cases like race start and so on...

Sorry if I've not really added anything here. It just feels more frustrating to have an unclear rule instead of no rule at all.

No need to apologize. Never walk away from a good debate .And yes, maybe they should clarify it now that it has happened.

my 2 cents on this: I must say after I saw the helpful piece made by racefans, that the ruling last year was more clear in that regard. Maybe they changed the wording to consider bodywork parts that drivers have difficulty viewing whether or not it is within bounds or not. The wording is more vague now. Again, within that vagueness one should be given the benefit of the doubt.

In the end all you can ask for in consistency if the rule if applied the same way all reason its a non issue inconsistency and that is weer it becomes trouble, though that was the issue last year too at times track limits varied from race to race.

[Watto]

On the line, over the line .. stewards have spoken, that's done and dusted.
Aside from that it was just strategy that cost Fer dearly today, strategy that didn't work out. Still think it was a just good call from Sai to wait and switch to slicks from full wets, he just didn't have a stonking outlap. And while Latifi didnt really help, that in itself wasnt really the issue I think. I'd say (but who am I) it was the loss of about 1s at the swimming pool area, combined with a little too careful outlap that blew in his face.
Sorry for him, he kinda needs his first win, but Per drove well and consistent; well deserved P1.

I do not understand the 5s for Oco though; Ham did some sort of a Copse by touching Oco's right read with his left front; nowhere near to owning that corner.

Well, off to Baku & Can .. I'd say two favorable RB tracks.

I think RB/Perez probably spooked them into the call for inters he was making good ground at that stage it may not have been super clear when slicks would have become of use.

Charles was pretty slow before the call too I recall the commentators mentioning he made up 3 seconds on a lap when they were both on inters that was more than the gap between Max and Charles and probably make the poor call by Ferrari even worse. They cost Charles today.

[jz11]

So according to racefans, this was the rule last year, and it was changed.

From this:


To this:


According to this change, the stewards are right in not penalizing Verstappen.

However, the rule change itself is as braindead as it gets. It is far, far easier to judge from footage whether a tyre touches an outboard line or not, rather than a line that has been fully crossed by the tire, and now is in inboard in relation to the car.

What part of a car can possibly cross the line without the tyre crossing it first? Unless your at 90* angle to the line. Its physically impossible since the wheels are the widest point of the car.

The key word is still in the 2021 ruling......CROSSED.

Just like in football....you dont score a goal if the ball doesnt CROSS the goal line.

But the ref calls it if any part of you, shoe elbow knee etc touches the touchline by the smallest amount. Same in tennis and most other sports, touching the line is over the line. ("chalk dust" etc)

in basketball - you step on the line = out
in badminton and tennis - the ball on the line is still in

my guess here in F1 is that if any tire of the car is still in contact with a line, you're still fine, like with with the track bounds

though the pit lane is something else, since there are cars on both sides of it, so if they are both legally allowed to occupy the line - they crash, which then makes this latest interpretation nonsensical, IMHO the pit lane line should be considered like a barrier, you enter the space above it = consider youself hitting a wall - getting penalized

that being said - when will ferarri get their crap together... because they are totally throwing this year away...

[silver]

Imagine if this was the last race of the season and this is Abu Dhabi! Imagine the furore on not giving a penalty to Verstappen for the pit line incident. More than Ferrari's blunder, stewards and race director would be roasted.

[PlatinumZealot]

According ti the FIA the tyre only touched the line but did not fully go accross it. Case closed. We have a precedent.

[zeph]

CHECO!!!
Happy that a solid dude like him won Monaco.

I bet Ferrari strategist is calling in sick tomorrow. Impressive how they manage to repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Shrieker]

According ti the FIA the tyre only touched the line but did not fully go accross it. Case closed. We have a precedent.

Only if your name starts with V, and you drive a navy blue/yellow/red car

Btw, here is the onboard video. I have a hard time believing that tire didn't fully cross the yellow line.