Charles Pic has been given an innovative punishment by the FIA Stewards in Singapore, after the unusual “crime” of overtaking under a red flag. The Stewards responded with a 20-second time penalty to be added at the end of the race on Sunday and he and his engineer have to perform one day of “Community Service” for the FIA Action for Road Safety campaign, at the behest of FIA President Jean Todt.
Are you joking?
Well it is not as though a 10(3)-place grid penalty would have affected him much.
Seems quite imaginative to me; perhaps Lewis will get a 5 second penalty next time McLaren forget to fuel him correctly – the punishment should reflect the severity of the crime.
I quite like the penalty, hopefully more will be dished out in the future
Msr. Todt has liberty to nit-pick the Community spirit of Msr. Pic and his over-zealous race engineer.
Could be the worst job Charles ever had?
Is there any sort of precedent for this kind of seemingly arbitrary penalty? One of the things that’s been frustrating me about F1 since I started following it has been a lack of evenhandedness in distributing penalties. I was thinking about ranting about this, but frankly Will Buxton has already done it better than I could: http://willthef1journo.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/spa-stewards-standards-and-safety/
That’s an excellent, right-headed and well-argued piece by Will Buxton – thanks for the link.
Excellent piece.
I seem to recall Schumacher received a road safety penalty along with being stripped of his championship position in 1997.
Genuinely one of the best titles I have seen in a while. Love it!
+ not bad
most of the qualifying headline puns are awful – but that made me smile
In which case they are not awful
For David’s point, the only similar thing I can think of is 1997, when Michael Schumacher had to do something similar as part of his punishment for the Jerez crash.
My problem is that it doesn’t say much for the FIA’s road safety campaign if drivers are known to be doing it as a punishment!
I have no issue with the community service. Yes, it’s a bit silly, but probably more effective than monetary penalties, especially for the multimillionaires on the grid.
The 20 second penalty on his race time? AWFUL. Time penalties like this are a terrible, horrible, confusing contrivance. I suffered through aggregate time races in the ’80s. The driver who crossed the finish line first didn’t always finish first. It was awful for both for the fans and the drivers.
At a time when so many other punishments exist, confusing a race with aggregate time shows a true lack of judgement by the officials.
I loved the aggregate timed races, always messed with the commentators heads and made me chuckle. It can actually give better racing as the guy who is leading (but not in first position) will try and gain as much of an advantage in the final laps instead of saving the car. Having cars between the two makes it all the more fun. I say bring back aggregate race times for red flags.
One of your best titles ever. ROTFLOL.
Eh ?
Didn’t he miss four red flags and some lights also? Is he blind or just stupid? And even if he is his radio guy should be pointing this stuff out to him as the track telemetry advises sections of the track where there are problems. The punishment was warranted I thought.
Is this sanction likely to be a morning litter-pick with some toilet cleaning in the afternoon, or more likely a chat with some school kids and some tea and biscuits?
It might have been a little different if he’d hit a marshall.
Still it sets a great precedent for making the humiliation fit the crime; for a very bad indiscretion someone could be given a penalty of being flown on to the stage of an opera in full overalls,
Nice title! Bad call from the FIA in my opinion though! In recent years penalties have become too frequent.. and I guess the drivers from the past eras of F1 would get disqualified at every GP!
Pretty much everything about this post is awesome, Joe. Thanks for brightening my morning!
Some weird penalties IMO.
Pic gets this, for a deliberate act. Schumacher gets 10 places for an accident and Vettel gets SFA for a break test.
Joe,
Off topic question, but do you think that the lack of the Lucozade logo at the rear wing of the Mclaren gives any credence to the old Coca-Cola sponsorship rumor?…I never gave it any credence, but it does seem strange for the team to have replaced a paying sponsor’s logo with the “tooned” logo.
What’s weird about the penalty which can be found in the FIA International Sporting Code?
What’s weird about it is that this penalty is rarely given. The reason it’s so rarely given is that having a driver ahead on track but behind due to a time penalty creates hugely confusing races that seem quite silly.
One imagines the only reason it was given in this case is because Pic typically occupies the back of the grid. The standard penalty for this sort of infraction is a grid-place penalty, something that would not impact Pic heavily, if at all.
This once again proves there definitely ARE two sets of penalties in Formula One. One set for the the A players, another for the lesser beings.
They should definitely look at the penalties handed out. I find it hard that a driver gets a penalty for a gearbox change. Penalise him for his mistakes a la Maldonado, Schumacher, Grojean but dont penalise him for that. Similarly when their crew arent off the grid in time – dont give the driver a penalty – fine the team.
I wonder would the FIA give Schumi a race ban if he goes into the back of another driver at high speed.
But the Community Service penalty is good. Other creative penalties to be included along with driver fines and timed penalties….
Crashing into the back of another driver recklessly = You must talk to Brundle on his grid walk.
Speeding in the pitlane = You have to try and make Vettel smile next time his car fails, or make Jean Todt smile naturally.
Overtalking under yellow flags = You must give Bernie some BA BAracus milk and burgers and then fly him to Munich.