Mark my words : 5th title for Max Verstappen
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Yes, it is worse. It’s a non-compliant vehicle.
Given how strong the ground effect is, any lack in compliance might lead to huge gains in performance.
There is no thinking to do, no room for negotiation. You comply or you don’t, that is binary
I’m really impressed with how Antonelli is handling the pressure lately. The guy is going to be a monster coming years.
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Interesting take, but I guess some will have to agree to disagree that it’s worse to have a non-compliant vehicle than it is to purposely/carelessly ruin someone else’s race and risk their life and limb.
Ah, a little more research and I see the plank origination and regulations have direct roots to preventing what was deemed the cause of Senna’s death. So essentially it, and the rules around it, are a combination of a technical and emotional reaction to an awful incident. Hard to fight things like that.
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These aren’t ‘takes’. These are matters of fact. Technical compliance is quite straight forward. If you’re underweight, for example, you’re underweight - DSQ. If you plank is worn too much - DSQ. Technical compliance is the #1, above all else, priority for any motorsport to function. It’s that simple.
You’re equating to sporting regulations which are a different set of standards. You highlight this quite clearly in the language you use. ‘Purposely’ ‘carelessly’ ‘risk their life and limb’. This are all subjective phrases. These aren’t things you can measure relatively conclusively. So the burden of proof is different, hence why the penalties have a greater range.
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What Alan is saying is correct. With a technical non-compliance, you’re driving an illegal car for the entire race. They started the race with the car setup illegally, which is why the plank wore down past the minimum allowed tolerance. It is not a singular incident or action that should have been penalized, it was outside the technical regulations before the race even began. If they could measure that before the race, McLaren wouldn’t have even been allowed to start, that’s why it’s an automatic DQ. There is no emotional reaction to something else that caused the severity of the penalty, it is simply that the car was outside the technical regulations and was that way for the entire race, and as such their results are taken away.
You lead by saying, “It’s that simple” and then you say:
You’re equating to sporting regulations which are a different set of standards. You highlight this quite clearly in the language you use. ‘Purposely’ ‘carelessly’ ‘risk their life and limb’. This are all subjective phrases. These aren’t things you can measure relatively conclusively.
Without going too far down the rabbit hole I will admit that you have successfully captured the operating norms of competitive motorsports as currently practiced.
Once it’s accepted that concepts like “purposely” and “carelessly” are flexible it should be easy to understand areas of opportunity/vulnerability from participant’s point of view, and that such a baseline encourages anyone who is happy to sacrifice sportsmanship (another ‘subjective’ phrase!) for positions on the track to ‘just send it’ and force officials to make a call or not. Of course, if one is competing in such an environment this is what they should expect to deal with at points along the way.
Technical compliance is quite straight forward.
You’ve described the current situation of how technical compliance penalties are enforced. There has never been any confusion or disagreement about that. All along I’ve been essentially asking if the penalties are proportional/rational. That could be interpreted to just applying to plank enforcement, technical compliance in general, or as contrasted to driving/sportsmanship enforcement. Take your pick.
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They are. Non compliant cars are dangerous and unfair, so it should be an automatic DSQ. I dont really see what is bothering you with that ?
I thought my stance is clear, but to be completely explicit: It’s my opinion that there cannot be any rational case made that there is ALWAYS a disqualification’s worth of advantage gained from a “non-compliant” vehicle. Just like with many other types of penalties, it makes sense to me to have a sliding scale where at least an attempt at proportional penalties are applied.
Conversely, I don’t see what’s not bothering you about the idea that drivers can exhibit just about any behavior they want to on the track and likely come away with far less penalty than if their vehicle measures a hundredth of a millimeter less/more in some way. That’s pure craziness to me, but then again, that’s just my opinion.
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Almost anything that happens on track will be be analyzed and discussed, which makes it subjective, hence the scale in penalties.
Being under weight, not having enough fuel for testing or having excessive plank wear is objective. Everything is explained in the rule book and every team must comply to ensure fair play. But because race directors can’t determine the advantage that was gained precisely, then it is DSQ.
It is logical, and having a scale in penalties would be unfair as well.
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Yes, I understand that those are your opinions, but further if this is true:
But because race directors can’t determine the advantage that was gained precisely, then it is DSQ.
Then logically any driving infraction should also result in a DSQ because those would also be hard to determine what was gained precisely.
Having a scale becomes a nightmare between having to enforce it and also the moving target of teams “gaming” the system. They become another part of strategy and the game of cat and mouse.
Like they say, opinions are like anuses, everybody has one and they all stinks. Just some more than others 
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You’re not wrong, but that they’re doing it already with driving standards so it is do-able in that sense.
However, from here I think I have to wave the white flag in terms of being a standard bearer for fighting the status quo.
They are things that can be debated for sure. Technical infringement penalties are not one of them, for the reasons we told you
Ultimately, anything can be up for debate, even that. Whether people have the care of the desire however…
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Anything is up for debate, but also anything can be created, so go at it. You can go try your sliding scale for technical infringements and see how it goes.
I have had to write tech regs, then investigate the skullduggery people get up to when they started to try and get around them. You need a hard red line otherwise you basically create something that’s unenforceable.
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