F1 drivers banned from overtaking in pit exit tunnel during qualifying · RaceFans

FIA Formula 1 race director Niels Wittich has prohibited all drivers from overtaking rivals along the pit exit road at Yas Marina during qualifying.

In updated official guidelines issued ahead of final practice on Saturday morning, Wittich explicitly prohibited all drivers from overtaking from the white line which marks the end of the pit lane to the second Safety Car line that marks the blend point onto the race track.

The move comes following an situation in the second practice session on Friday when world champion Max Verstappen passed rivals who were exiting the pit lane slower than typical racing speed.

Following the second red flag delay triggered by Nico Hulkenberg’s crash at turn one, Verstappen exited the pit lane after the session resumed near the back of the long queue of cars behind the two Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Eager to join the track with just 15 minutes remaining in the session, Verstappen drove around the outside of both Mercedes into the left hand underground turn at the pit exit before driving around Esteban Ocon’s Alpine up the hill to join the race track.

“I’m getting blocked,” Verstappen insisted over team radio.

The phenomenon of drivers slowing at pit exit to generate a gap to cars ahead before joining the race track has developed in the second half of the 2023 season after the introduction of a maximum lap time limit in qualifying. The measure was brought in at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to attempt to reduce instances of drivers slowing dangerously at the end of a lap to create a space to begin their flying laps in qualifying.

There are typically no rules forbidding drivers from overtaking along the pit entry or pit exit outside of the two white lines that denote the pit lane where the pit lane speed limit is in effect at all times. During the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos earlier this month, another venue which has a long and winding pit lane exit, drivers were told to leave space to allow rivals to overtake them if they needed to.

But for this weekend’s qualifying session, drivers have been forbidden from overtaking at any point in the pit exit road “unless a car slows with an obvious problem.”

Speaking after practice on Friday, Verstappen insisted that his rivals were in the wrong by not exiting the pits at racing speed.

“They have to move,” he said. “They’re all driving slow and I want to go out because we are all limited on time but they just keep on driving in the…