The respective team bosses at Red Bull and Haas have offered differing views on whether the current grid penalties for exceeding engine and gearbox parts should be changed following a mess last weekend in Monza.
Of the 20 cars in the field, nine would pick up penalties for new engine elements or changing a gearbox out of sequence. So silly was the situation, some drivers who had penalties actually started ahead of where they qualified and grid girls and crews were seen having to be moved to the right position before the start due to the confusion.
It is not a new debate, with many believing the penalties spoil the races and are also bemused when it reads that a driver has picked up sometimes a 50-place+ grid drop when only 20 cars race.
Motorsport Managing Director Ross Brawn stated in the build-up that he wanted an alternative to grid penalties to be found and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who saw both his cars fall down after qualifying second and third was scathing in his criticism.
“It needs a serious look at to see whether there is a better way to penalise a manufacturer or an entrant as opposed to messing around with the grid,” he was quoted by Sky Sports. “It is only going to get worse towards the end [of the season] and it would be a shame to see this championship decided on grid penalties.”
The Briton also pointed to the situation for next year, as the already tight limit of just four of each engine component is set to shrink even further in an effort to save costs.
“What concerns me is that we are going to three engines for next year with more races,” he said. “To me, that should be number one on the agenda at the next Strategy Group meeting.
“I tried to get it changed at a meeting earlier in the year but there was no support for it. I would hope that would perhaps be different with teams staring down the barrel of further penalties between now and the end of the year.
“Obviously the penalty has to be a significant deterrent because the whole point of this was cost-saving. But we’re not saving costs because the engines are going on a world tour anyway. Maybe five engines is the right number rather than four going to three.”
Haas F1 Team Prinicpal Guenther Steiner would disagree with Horner, however, believing a grid penalty was the best all-around solution the problem and kept the top teams, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes in check.
“We did this for a good reason — to have cost control,” he claimed. “If you get only one grid position or something, again the big teams will go away even further because they would change everything, every time, evolve it and be faster. They would make up the grid penalties with being faster.
“Look at Verstappen, or Ricciardo, 35 [positions] and he still finished fourth… The big teams they can make it up and if we reduce the grid penalties, there’s no point to do it. The again we would just spend more money because we don’t care about the grid penalties as we would make it up.”
He also rejected the notion of any unfairness about the current regulations to customer teams who bare the brunt of penalties for failures of parts that they didnt produce, with many pointing at McLaren’s issues with Honda.
“Yeah, we did something wrong. We signed up with the wrong supplier,” he said, referring to if Haas had a penalty due to a Ferrari-made part. “You live by your choices. If you make strategic decisions wrong, you are penalised as well. It sounds maybe funny but you live by your choices.
“If you go for certain reasons to a manufacturers because you like their price, or like this then you’re responsible for it, it comes with it. If you are penalised it, for example the works team has no problems and you have all the problems then it starts to get iffy, but I don’t think it’s happening for the moment.
“We know the rules. Is it looking good or not? The penalties are given a reason because people are doing a bad job. It’s not like they were penalised, they knew before and if they don’t do a good job, or good enough, then that’s what they get.”
