Renault wants more leniency for tech breaches but FIA disagrees

Renault F1 boss Cyrill Abiteboul believes minor tech breaches in F1 should be treated with more leniency, but FIA race director Michael Masi says such a change would put the sport in a "dangerous territory".

Renault's Daniel Ricciardo was excluded from qualifying in Singapore last weekend when the stewards found that the Aussie's MGU-K had delivered a temporary power surge that exceed the legal limit.

It was later revealed that the sudden energy spike had occurred just once in Q1 and delivered a microsecond advantage on a lap on which Ricciardo did not improve on his best time.

Given those circumstances, many believed the stewards should have simply deleted the specific lap rather than enforce the exclusion sanction.

• Angry Ricciardo felt 'disgraced' by Singapore stewards

Abiteboul sees a contradiction between the FIA's more indulgent approach to driver penalties and its merciless rulings involving technical breaches.

"It's a bit sad because we all know the fans want less penalties, that's obvious," Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.

"It's strange because on the one side you can see that on the race track Michael Masi is coming with a new doctrine, the black and white flag, a sort of yellow card, so we're trying to be sensible about the regulations and the impact on the sport and the show.

"And on the other side we have this, and for me there is disconnect between the two that we can only regret because we were on the receiving end, and obviously you can't expect anything else from me.

"In my opinion in the future there has to be a discussion with the FIA on whether we want to follow more that system that is going on on the race track, or that strict application based on machines, not based on people."

However, Masi sees building in margins when it comes to technical infringement as a can of worms the FIA official is very reluctant to open.

"When it comes to technical infringements, Martin Brundle put it best: you're either pregnant or you're not!" he said.

"I think everyone knows when it comes to technical infringements of that nature what the outcome is. You either are or you aren't.

"I can feel for Daniel, it was an error, and sadly it is what it is.

"Personally, I think we're treading on dangerous territory when we're starting with technical infringements in particular building margins in upon margins."

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