Gravel traps to reduce track limit issues at Spielberg

Local organisers are working with the FIA to add more gravel traps to the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg in time for this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix in order to cut down on the high number of track limit violations.

There was a record number of track limit incidents in last year's race, overwhelming race control meaning that it took a long time for warning flags and time penalties to be issued.

Over 1,200 potential track limits infringements in total were reported during last year’s race with a total of 83 infringements were identified, all of them occurring at the final two corners of the 4.318km track.

After the race it emerged that there simply hadn't been time to review video footage and telemetry from every single case, leading to a protest from the Aston Martin team that the rules had not been consistently applied.

It took several hours for the stewards and officials to go through all the track limit violations that had been flagged up by the software and to issue a revised race result with eight drivers handed post-race penalties.

• Read also: Zak Brown adamant Austrian GP track limit fiasco 'won't happen again'

One driver - Alpine's Esteban Ocon - found himself handed a total of four separate sanctions after the race, adding up to a total of 30 seconds of penalties that dropped him out of the top ten and left him classified in P14.

The delay and confusion to confirming the final classification was widely criticised and mocked at the time, and organisers are determined to ensure there is no repeat of the chaos again this weekend.

"We can't have it again," McLaren CEO Zak Brown said in the days immediately after last year's race. "We can't have a race and five hours later you have that degree of change and penalties.

"It definitely wasn't ideal," he added. "That's stating the obvious."

Organisers have now accepted the recommendation made by the race stewards last year to add two 2.5-metre-wide gravel traps at the edges of the exit of turns nine and 10, with the necessary work being undertaken in the last two weeks.

While they should reduce the need for post-race penalties, gravel traps are not a magic bullet as they are problematic for other motorsports events that run at the Red Bull Ring.

Gravel traps at the edges of such high-speed corners can cause particular safety concerns for two-wheel racing, meaning it might be necessary to remove the gravel traps again before the next visit by MotoGP and others.

The FIA had acknowledged there was a necessary trade-off involved in the differing requirements when it issued last year's recommendations.

“We note that while this is not a straightforward solution in relation to other series that race here, it has proved to be very effective at other corners and circuits with similar issues.”

The Red Bull Ring previously accommodated the needs of the motorcycling series by adding a chicane at turn 2, but this is not a section of the track used by Formula 1 at the Austrian GP.

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