The limited visibility within Formula 1 cars’ cockpits is part of the reason why two drivers have been penalised for failing to line up correctly at the start, say their rivals.
Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso were given five-second time penalties for being in incorrect starting positions at the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix respectively. Both drivers fell foul of a revised rule for the 2023 F1 season which requires driver to position their cars between two lines in their grid boxes.
George Russell said it is “incredibly tough” for drivers to line up correctly in their grid boxes. “I think a five-second penalty for being laterally out is probably too harsh.
“We can’t see anything when we line up so yeah, the penalty needs to be reflected on the difficulty.”
The visibility in an F1 car is noticeably worse than in the machines raced in junior categories, said Logan Sargeant, who graduated to the series from Formula 2 this year.
“Coming from F3 and F2 where you can see everything, you can see the yellow line, it’s really easy to line the car up in the right spot.
“The first thing I noticed, the first time I lined up in a grid box in an F1 car, you can’t see anything. You can’t see any of the lines, so you have to take a marker on the wall to your right or left to know how far forward you can pull as well. So it is a lot more difficult and I’m not surprised that there are struggles.”
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Another driver racing in their first full season of F1 this year, Nyck de Vries, said “you literally can’t see anything” at the wheel.
“You park up but you kind of reference yourself to the car in front of you and then you kind of guess where you are. You can see the yellow line coming into it and then it disappears and you just hope you don’t exceed it too far. So it’s definitely very challenging.”
The grid boxes have been widened slightly for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, and a line has been painted down the centre of each to give drivers a better reference. While Alonso doubts this will solve the problem in all cases, Pierre Gasly thinks it will be an improvement.
“It’s one of the most stressful times of the race, to be fair. If you look back at the first two races of the year, two drivers got penalised. I don’t think this is necessary and I think it’s good we are increasing and just giving us slightly more space.
“It doesn’t really change anything for anyone,…
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