Don't forget they currently also get additional gear boxes for DNFs and crashes, so most drivers will use more than 4 in a season.Gerhard Berger wrote:As Martin Brundle said at Malaysia, you cannot separate the driver and the car in a team sport. A drivers performance is always linked to the car. It's no different from a driver being badly affected by the team designing a poor chassis or his engine blowing up in the race.raymondu999 wrote:Yes but they're allowed 4 now, by virtue of each gearbox having to last 5 consecutive races. It would be more like 4 gearboxes a year
I agree though. It should be a team-based penalty, not a driver penalty.
I think they should use a similar rule to engines though.
Ultimately the number doesn't matter so much. All the rules in F1 are currently geared around making it an endurance sport rather than a sprint, yet drivers are still punished for some arbitrary component failures but not others. Have you ever looked at the amount of stuff teams can end up changing under the parc ferme rules?
In certain circumstance, think going off on their in lap or being hit by another car, they could end up rebuilding pretty much the entire car - but if they have change the engine or gearbox they get a penalty... I know it's the same for all, and for that at least I am grateful, but it still seems somewhat unfair and imbalanced.
