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Well no, because running wider on the exit of corners gives the driver an advantage because the car doesn't have to keep to such a tight radius. That's why cars are meant to keep within the lines.

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Can't see how anyone can disagree with the penalty - Vettel passed Button outside the boundaries of the track. Doesn't matter how much grip there is or isn't out there, outside the track is still outside the track. Only reason there's so much controversy is because the chimps at the FIA have actually started enforcing their own rules about 10 years too late.

Precisely. This is why a lot of us feel the penalty was unfair. I mean, why now? Why Vettel? Why all of a sudden, after allowing other drivers in multiple series for the past 10 years to set a precedent where using that piece of tarmac was acceptable, do you decide to dish out a penalty?

What about other drivers who did the same thing during the race and through the GP2 and GP3 races, some of which were probably not caught on camera? Is this incident a special case because it was 2nd place in the GP? In addition, if respecting track boundaries is now so important how come Alonso and Vettel weren't penalised earlier in the race for continuously leaving the tracks boundaries?

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I agree, and I'm at a complete loss too. I probably worded my first post wrongly - I can't see how anyone can disagree with the reasoning behind the penalty. Whether it should have been applied or not is a different case entirely.

The fact that there's no grass at that particular bit of circuit is a symptom of tarmac overkill, too. It's well beyond the point where having tarmac as a runoff could potentially be of any use, so why not just throw a strip of grass down with gravel outside it?

Very silly situation.

If you go off there should be a risk of damaging you car or beaching yourself. You shouldn't be able to go all four wheels off the track and gain an advantage.

Plus, don't they use a special paint nowadays that actually gives more grip then ordinary paint? Like that stuff that makes Paul Ricard an eyesore.

Paul Ricard was an eyesore in 1989, if you remember what colours they painted the curbs.

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The paint at Paul Ricard is high friction paint. Reduces the speed of cars when sliding sideways over it. No idea how it reacts to a car trying to accelerate on it, but it's different to the paint they use on kerbs and adverts - that stuff is still glossy style.

There is literally zero chance Seb gained a traction advantage off the circuit. It's dusty and dirty, and paint isn't as good as tarmac. You could argue he straight lined it easier, lessening the angle thus giving him an advantage., but certainly no traction advantage over on the circuit.

more grip, less grip, we don't know that. But if you look a the corner and the line you are supposed to take, and the line that Seb took, it is obvious that the line Vettel took was in my opinion a whole lot faster. So he gained a big advantage.

So if there was less grip, then the advantage of taking this 'outside racing line' was REALLY huge I guess.

I'm only judging what I saw on television.

Yeaa, the FIA had all the information that we didn't have. They know when he was accelerating, his angle of steering and traction.

That is just a bad excuse for this atrocious penalty. You are right that it gives an advantage, so what? Leave it as it has always been! If the driver on the inside think the driver on the outside takes an advantage by running wide, don't complain over the bloody radio, do it in the man's way just like what Massa and Kubica did in Fuji finish 2008!

This white line rule is just another tip of iceberg in too much interference and coupling that with the inconsistency and bias in stewarding is over the top. Some people like more rules that make life easier to follow, I respect that (sort of), but I am old school on this.

The Massa/Kubica fight is the most overrated piece of driving in the history of F1 if you ask me.

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I said that at the time and got a new asshole ripped on this forum. They just spent the entire time making silly moves and were lucky to even finish. They passed each using tarmac run off all over the place too.

Overrated maybe, but I'd rather have seen two drivers doing what they were doing rather than running line of stern and not attempting anything.

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Quite hard when the faster car passes and doesn't give any chance of a switchback.

I agree with the penalty, but get rid of that piece of tarmac. It has no use at that part of the track. It's the exit of the slowest corner of the track, you could put a wall right behind that curb and it would still be 100% safe. In fact, there is a wall right next to the track 3 corners later (entry stadium). No crash has ever happened there, but that is a very dangerous spot. Are the track designers really that stupid? Put big runoff in a safe slow corner exit, but just place that wall right at the edge of the track in a high speed corner.

I think there's a fear that grass or something like at that place could create the risk of a driver spinning at a very dangerous speed. I just don't know how dangerous wold be a T-bone crash at such a slow point of the track.

I have a simple question regarding the rules. Sometimes a driver is asked over the team radio to give back position after shortcutting a chicane in-race, happened last year in Monaco for example ans we heard it on live TV.

Is it because the officials tell the team to do so in real time, or is it just the team's decision to prevent a drive through penalty?

And if the race was still ongoing with Button right behind Vettel, would the FIA still give Vettel a drive-through or just tell him to come back behind?

Race control contacts the team via an internal message system which every team has. It's connected to the pit wall and I suspect someone in the garage has it too. So then the team relays the message to the driver. It's likely the FIA would have asked Vettel to give the spot back had there been more time in the race. Which to me, makes the penalty incredibly unfair. It's always been accepted on that part of the track, Jenson broke a brand new rule, and had it happened earlier they'd have simply swapped the positions. Had they simply swapped Vettel back behind Jenson then I could understand it better because it's what they normally would have done, but deciding on a stop and go, which wouldn't have happened, seems overkill.

Kimi had a little accident on Sunday after the race