JordanMugen wrote: ↑01 Jul 2024, 21:45
TFSA wrote: ↑01 Jul 2024, 19:57
Remaining within the limits of the track just requires the car to keep one wheel on the white lines, although they use the word "clearly",
It is very unlikely that the intention of the rule is to permit the car on the track to push the other car to have all but part of one wheel on the grass. For obvious reasons, that can cause a large accident as there is no traction on the grass.
Where circuits have tarmac or kerb beyond the white line instead of grass or gravel or a barrier is irrelevant.
It's true that Norris pushed Verstappen to go "rallying" in Spain at the start, by the letter of the rules Norris should have been penalised for that as squeezing people towards the grass and/or pit wall (if there is a pitwall immediately adjacent to the white line, like on a street circuit) is extremely dangerous.
We've seen drivers get away with incidents similar to this, because there was no damage (even if they touched). I've always been very critical of people claiming that stewards are penalizing the outcome, but i gotta admit I'm slowly starting to warm to it.
So the point here is that I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. No, you're unlikely to be blame-free if you just leave just enough of a gap so the other driver can keep one wheel on the white line. But we've definitely seen enough to conclude that the "cars width" rule doesn't apply in general. Most of the time when drivers squeeze like that, nothing is done about it. It's only when collisions happen (which they rarely do), that the stewards
sometimes do something about it. This makes it impossible for us (the public) to actually figure out what the standard actually is.
I came across
this Reddit-post which i think explains my thoughts pretty well:
In addition, and just for greater context for the race/battle a Reddit-poster did some analysis of each incident in their battle, lap by lap, which i also think is pretty good. Linked below, because it's long, and i don't want it to take up too much screen space here:
PICTURE / Reddit Link