The picture you have pointed out, is an excellant example of what this ongoing disagreement is about. Note that the caption to the picture says " ...the driver is aiming to get all 4 wheels off the track over the kerb". The point is, that the white lines around tracks mark the official shape/edge of the track. The rules state: "Any driver leaving the track more than twice, for any reason, may be excluded from the race. Where a driver consistently drives with a wheel off the track or leaves the track, this may be deemed driving in a manner incompatible with general safety and the driver may be excluded from the race at the discretion of of the Clerk of the Course." Clearly, kerb riding is against the rules, but the rules make punishment optional! This is because the rules were not written with dealing with deliberate corner cutting to gain an advantage in mind, only with accidental, or unavoidable corner cutting that should not necessarily warrant punishment. My personal objections to allowing corner cutting to lap faster are threefold: 1. Driving over kerbs causes damage to chassis's, and brake discs, and is probably responsible for the new disc protector rule. 2. To be fair, everybody should be driving around the same shape track, it should not be left to personal interpretation. the playing field needs to be level, and those that stick to the rules should not be at a disadvantage. 3. Its against the rules, and we should not be allowed to pick and choose which rules we want to obey, nor indeed should officials be able to choose which rules they wish to enforce.
|
|