Red Bull star Max Verstappen and Mercedes driver George Russell each avoided penalties after causing chaos in the pitlane during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix
In complete agreement with McLaren CEO Andrea Stella, Martin Brundle wants Formula 1 executives to come up with a “better solution” to prevent the chaos we witnessed in the pits prior to the Mexican Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen and George Russell both escaped FIA penalties during Saturday’s qualifying session despite obstructing the pitlane exit. While making a suitable gap on their qualifying laps, the drivers, who had been parked at the end of the pitlane, positioned themselves ahead of the white safety car line, holding up everyone behind.
A maximum time limit between that line and the other safety car line just prior to pit entry was introduced to prevent possible high-speed collisions, and as Brundle points out, it’s largely worked.
But it can also lead to drivers using a little bit of sleight of hand. Verstappen got into hot water in Singapore earlier this year for a similar incident, but like this past weekend, he got away with it.
After McLaren driver Lando Norris was held up in Mexico City on Saturday, team principal Stella declared: “I think immediate action needs to be taken. It’s not a good spectacle. It makes the operations very difficult because you send your car and you actually don’t know when your car is going to get on track.
It puts all drivers too much at the mercy of the other drivers. And this for me starts to be unfair. We need to create policy aspects and ruling aspects to control the situation, which I think is just inappropriate.”
Brundle agrees, suggesting in his Sky Sports column: “Perhaps [drivers] should be obliged to stop in the middle lane rather than the fast lane. However, there are two issues there, the cars wouldn’t then be spaced out particularly well on track, and some circuits like Monaco don’t have the space for a spare middle pit lane like that.
It does seem unfair for teams positioned at the far end of the pit lane, and those drivers who need to get out and get on with regard to their qualifying lap preparation. For now, I guess we have to explain that it’s an acceptable practice by precedent, let the drivers and teams sort it out among themselves, and look for a better solution.”
Driver Norris, who is Belgian-British, thinks that imposing fines would help to stop the kind of mayhem that occurred on Saturday. “I believe it’s something that we have stated will occur and will present challenges,” the McLaren athlete clarified.
“Whereas there weren’t many negative scenarios before, there are now a few worse ones because people want the gaps to widen even more. People are increasingly pushing the boundaries because they can get away with it.