The Rarity Of Driver Suspensions In Formula 1

This week, the biggest news in racing was not inside Formula 1. NASCAR Cup Series driver Bubba Wallace found himself suspended for one race following his crash with Kyle Larson at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Larson had run Wallace into the wall and Wallace retaliated by hooking the defending champion in the right rear, sending him into a dangerous crash. This retaliatory behavior is often tolerated in NASCAR, sometimes even encouraged, and seeing drivers wreck out of races because of this mindset is not uncommon.

While the suspension is somewhat rare, the ordeal calls to mind how F1 tracks are policed, the safety of the cars, how teams manage their drivers and the sport itself.  That races can be littered with in-race penalties, dropping drivers out of contention and out of the points amounts to being parked or earning a DNF.  The stewards provide an extensive penalty system that metes out discipline in the equivalent of real time.

Driver suspensions are rare because there is often no need.

The last F1 driver suspension came back in 2012.  The incident occurred at Spa-Francorchamps when Romain Grosjean served as the catalyst for a multi-car wreck.  He began by taking out McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, then continued by sending McLaren’s second driver out of the race, Fernando Alonso, who held the driver points lead at the time.  Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi also saw their days ended early thanks to Grosjean’s ill-advised and desperate maneuver.

The clip (see link above) shows how Grosjean became a missile without direction as soon as he clipped Hamilton.  The ensuing carnage is one reason for concern, but so is the fact Grosjean wound up driving across the top of another car.  Incidents such as these are the reason the sport pushed to implement the Halo to ensure driver safety.

The reasoning for the suspension came not only because Grosjean was driving like an idiot –  he was – but because he “eliminated champion contenders from the race.”

An aside about Grosjean.  He had developed a reputation for being reckless by the 2012 season, and his wreck at Spa was not the only questionable moment of decision-making.  By the time he had found his way to Haas in 2016, his aggression had been tempered by poorly competitive cars, and he seemed to be a somewhat benign track presence.  The key word is somewhat, because there are crash highlight reels of the Swiss driver, and he has once again taken on the role of banging around with…