Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has emphasized the need for F1 to resolve its track limit issues, insisting that last weekend’s chaos in Qatar was not in line with the sport’s standards.
Last weekend’s round of racing at Lusail, where F1 returned after a one year hiatus, was marked by the event’s grueling conditions amid extreme heat and humidity, but also by safety concerns surrounding Pirelli’s tyres which were made vulnerable to the track’s aggressive kerbs.
To mitigate the issue, revised track limit rules were enforced at several corners, a decision that led to dozens of transgressions during last Sunday’s 57-lap race and to plenty of time penalties.
But overall, taking into account all sessions and Sunday’s race, a total of 127 laps were deleted over the course of the weekend, a state of affairs reminiscent of what happened earlier this season at the Austrian Grand Prix.
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Vasseur was anything but surprised by the controversy.
“I would say the biggest issue of the weekend for me was track limits,” said the Scuderia boss.
“You know when you go to Spielberg you will have issues with the track limits, and we had issues with track limits. We got the result two hours after the race.
“Before the weekend [in Qatar], we told them [the drivers] exactly the same, it will be a festival, and it was a festival.
“On top of this, I think the drivers at the end [of the race] probably lost a little bit of concentration. Some guys, over the last 10 laps, were getting strikes every single lap.
“But you can’t blame them in this situation.”
Vasseur believes that without a viable solution to F1’s track limit conundrum, the sport’s credibility will suffer.
“We have to find a solution. It’s not good for the show,” added the Frenchman.
“At least on the pit wall you have the number of strikes, you can follow the story, you know where you are.
“But I’m thinking about the guys who are in front of their TV. They don’t have the story about the strikes, and at one stage they see ‘Gasly five seconds’; ‘Gasly 10 seconds; ‘Gasly 15 seconds’.
“We have to think about this, that we can anticipate this kind of issue.”
Qatar, which is contracted to F1 until 2032, invested heavily in its infrastructure ahead of this year’s event, resurfacing its track and implementing news kerbs all around its 5.4km layout.
But Vasseur suggested that more needs to be done for F1 to have an integrated solution that covers not only the profile of its kerbs but also what resides beyond them.
“It’s not just a matter of the kerbs,” he explained. “It’s the complete process – the layout of the track, the kerbs, what is after the kerbs. We have to find a solution.
“I don’t want to speak about investment, but we are coming to Qatar, and they are making a mega effort to organise the event.
“But this outcome, for me, is not at the level of the championship.”
While critical of F1's track limits problem, Vasseur praised Pirelli for its swift diagnosis and management last weekend in Qatar of its tyre concerns.
“I think the reaction was quite good,” he said. "At the end of the day, it's always, for me, safety first.
“We were not sure and to have this kind of reaction, we did a good race. It was a good show and I would say that the reaction was very appropriate."
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