George Russell has suggested that a compromise should be found after the Grand Prix weekend in Saudi Arabia, where he felt that some of the rules were ‘senseless’ in nature.
Mercedes’ driver, Russell, finished in fourth place at the end of the race, with Aston Martin’s Alonso in third place.
Alonso celebrated on the podium, but he was later given a 10-second penalty for breaking the rules after receiving a five-second penalty during his pit stop. This pushed Russell up to the third place.
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However, three hours later, the stewards changed their decision after Aston Martin requested a review process. They discovered some ambiguities and therefore overturned their initial ruling.
As a result of the stewards’ decision, Alonso was given back his third-place position, which marked the 100th time he had been on the podium in his Formula 1 career. Meanwhile, Russell was demoted to fourth place.
Alonso’s penalty was initially given because he had not aligned his AMR23 correctly in his grid box, and the car was positioned slightly to the left.
Russell, who is also the director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, believes that the issue of poor visibility on the track needs to be addressed for the safety of all drivers.
“I understand why these rules are there,” said Russell. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to stick within the guidelines.
“But I think a little bit of common sense needs to be shown and ultimately, I think he was a bit to the left, he gained nothing from this. Perhaps a five-second (penalty) is too much.”
A penalty of 10 seconds was enforced when the rear jack was already in position to lift the car for a tire change. According to the present regulations, no maintenance or repair work can be done on the vehicle during a penalty period.
Russell feels the imposition of a 10-second penalty for the offence of ‘working on a car’ to be “extreme”. It’s just making it a little bit, I guess, frustrating for everybody,” said the British driver.
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The Mercedes driver further elaborated on how frustrations had commenced earlier in the weekend via the notes issued pre-race by race director Niels Wittich.
They were cautioned against crossing over the white lines at the pit entry and exit, and their lap times were deleted if they made contact with the red painted sections in those regions.
“There were a lot of conversations going on this weekend about which lines you could touch, which lines you couldn’t touch, especially at the pit exit, and on the pit entry,” said Russell.
“In qualifying, we saw a number of cars get laps deleted for touching a bit of the red paint, ending their lap.
“I just thought that was a little bit senseless, really, so I think we all need to come together and just find a common centre ground.”
