Why does F1 hardly ever use penalties harsher than the drive-through?

[Jax Humanhater]

When a driver makes a rash manoeuvre, we usually see a grid penalty, regardless of the harshness of that particular manoeuvre.

Growing up, it used to be when drivers sped in the pit lane, they would be hit with a stop-go penalty, something I wish they used more often, because today, I have seen some incidents worthy of a stop-go.

Could it be that racing is less harsh compared to 10-15 years ago? Man, I still watch F1, but I have a feeling among other cons, that the stewards don't even punish drivers responsible for incidents accordingly.

The general idea is:

Drive-through penalty for the most minor infringements
Stop-go penalty for moderate to significant infringements
Disqualification, grid penalties, and race bans for severe to the highest extreme infringements.

Your thoughts?

 

[Chris Jenkins]

There's usually standard criteria that determines the severity of the penalty.

 

[Luke McVicar]

well it would be ok if they stopped giving drive throughs for breathing.

So i completely disagree with you.

 

[William Moody]

Ye i agree with luke, just ask poor lewis this season

 

[Thilo Falkenberg]

Don't forget that this year was the first year you could notice, they based the drive-throughs and stop'n'gos on how the pitlane is constructed. Drive-throughs were invented like 10 years ago to have something other then stop'n'gos (due to stalling and everything). So it makes sense they use DTs. Moreover nowadays there is also a pro in the jury as advisor, so the driver's point of view is strengthend. The way they punish today is adequat, I'd say.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Ye i agree with luke, just ask poor lewis this season

I'm a Hamilton/McLaren fan, but every penalty Lewis has received this year has been justified.

 

[Mario Knezevic]

It's actually good that they only get drive through instead of Stop and Go penalties. Also, disqualifying a driver would be ridiculous. If they do something so badly, and let's say he won or is in the top 5 just give him a 30 second or something penalty or 5 places down at the next race. But seriously, there are no big issues nowadays to give a driver a Stop and Go.

 

[Péter Bártfai]

Schumacher got a stop&go at Silverstone, and someone else too I believe.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Kobayashi.
The new Silverstone pit lane cuts 3 or 4 corners, so it doesn't work out to be much slower than staying on the race track if you were to do a drive-through.

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

My thoughts:

1) Before 1994, a Stop and go(SG) didn't take as much time as nowadays, because there was no pitlane speed limit. And, IIRC, they were sometimes shorter than 10 seconds.

2) In 80s/90s, an SG probably had less influence on a race than a Drive Through nowadays, because the field is much tighter now.

3) With the current point system, a DT will still represent a big hit points wise in most case, or will simply ruin your chances for points if you are a mid-field driver. So, it is probably harsh enough as it is. Furthermore, there is no real driver behaviour problems in F1, comparing to feeder series(ever had a look at GP3?) or other international single seaters series(ever had a look at IndyCar?).

4) Now I could understand the usage of a SGs if the driver creating the incident made a blatant mistake, caused the retirement of the car he took off, without making any damage on his own car(example:

. Schumacher did get a SG for that, as there was no DT back then.) Now this kind of situations are quite rare, and quite frankly F1 probably has other priorities than revising its penalty set.