"I think the track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke"- Max Verstappen feels stewards penalizing almost everyone at 2022 F1 Austrian GP 'doesn’t look good for the sport'

Max Verstappen has labeled the stewards decision to penalize drivers for track limit infringements at the Austrian GP last weekend as “a bit of a joke.” The Dutchman believes that the sheer number of penalties issued during the race “doesn’t make the sport look good.”

Speaking to planetf1 in a post-race interview, he said:

“I think the track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not only in F1 but in F2 and F3.”

He added:

“These kind of things, I think it just doesn’t look good for the sport as well and this is just one thing. Then the other thing is racing incidents and stuff. Yeah for sure we can do better. I think we will work on it; we’ll try to make it better.”

He added, saying:

“To be honest, there’s only two or three corners where you can really just go a bit wider. I don’t think we should have this value on one millimetre over that’s a penalty or whatever.”

The Austrian GP saw almost every driver on the grid receive warnings for track limit infringements, while at least half a dozen of them received 5-second penalties for exceeding three warnings.

Apart from being mocked mercilessly by fans, the sheer number of penalties made it difficult to keep track of each drivers’ net position at one point in time.

Rather than wasting resources on monitoring track limits at every race, Max Verstappen urged the FIA to use gravel to discourage drivers from exceeding track limits. He said:

“Then just add a wall or put some gravel back where we…like Turn 6 on the exit. I think that’s great because there is gravel, you punish yourself if you go wide.”

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Keeping within track limits ‘easier said than done’ says Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen said that it is much harder to stay within track limits than many believe it to be, given the limited visibility from within the cockpit. Furthermore, the Dutchman said that the blind nature of some of the corners at the Austrian GP added to the difficulty. He said:

“It’s easy to say from the outside, ‘yeah, but you have to just stay within the white lines’, but it’s not because when you go that quick through a corner and some of them are a bit blind, if you have a bit more understeer, tyres are wearing, it’s easy to just go over the white line, but do we actually gain time?”

In recent months, race control has taken an increasingly strict outlook towards track limits, forcing drivers to always stay within the white lines no matter what. This change came after discussions with drivers last year, when race control only monitored track limits at certain corners on a circuit-by-circuit basis, which left drivers asking for more certain rules when it comes to track limits.