As I have said previously the circuit is the area defined by the white lines that are the boundary of the circuit. Unfortunately, even from the very top of the sport this fact is now routinely ignored. It is generally accepted, however that two of the wheels may cross this boundary on corner apexes and exits but all 4 wheels leaving the circuit more than twice during the course of a race or practice is viewed as leaving the circuit and as such you are liable for exclusion from the results. This rule is and has for many years been in the good old Blue Book. I have not read the FIA Sporing code that covers F1 but I suspect that that or a very similar worded rule is buried in there somewhere in which case how many F1 competitors should have been excluded during the last few seasons? The provision of apex and run off kerbs was originally conceived to protect the racing surface from breaking up due to overstepping the boundaries, not to make the circuit wider and the racing line alter from the original layout. I firmly believe that a fresh approach to corner cutting and kerb design is required that offers no advantage whatsoever over anyone who uses the prescribed circuit, ideally it should be slightly slower to use the apex kerb or run off to act as a penalty for the driving error that caused the use of these areas. If this approach was universally adopted it is likely that we would see some new names on major titles which are those who have driven the entire race distance set out in the regulations rather than the drivers who cut the corners and drive 20 or 30 meters per lap less than the driver who has stayed on the circuit. Those on this forum that know who I am, what I do and for whom I work will appreciate that we both have a similar view on this problem and have tried to address these issues with our circuit. We have not yet perfected it but we are pretty damm close!! And I think we are fairly well qualified to make a judgment on weather it is fair game to cut a corner, we have cut apexes in the past because circuit design dictated that we must to stay competitive if no action was being taken against others but that did not make it right.
|
|