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[Denthúl]

I think if it's something the team does they should deduct constructors points, if its something the driver does then the driver gets the penalty.
Regarding the safety aspect I agree with LRW, make a minimum stop time for wheel changes.

And how would you propose to penalise the driver?

[1Lemon]

Ok, you impose a grid penalty on things that are illegal and give the teams advantages like ride hight, weight, fuel levels etc. Teams wan't to do that but can't, sometimes they do and are punished accordingly; no team want's to loose a wheel in a pit stop, it's not beneficial so why penalise the driver with a grid penalty? Maybe WCC points but in all honesty this just seems to battle the problem not the cause.

[Hammer278]

It seems teams will receive a ten place grid drop for fitting a wheel that then comes off, that seems grossly unfair to me on the driver!

Ridiculous. The driver gets penalized again for something completely out of his control....FIA are a bunch of retarded mutts.

It's a team sport and the driver is part of the team; they suffer when the driver does something out of their control, so it's not really unfair.

We have a Drivers WDC and a contructors WCC for a reason. If the team work well for the driver (and with him), they deserve a great result in the WCC.

Why should the driver get affected by the operational failures of his team? He's got a WDC to shoot for, and no doubt he needs his team for it but his efforts should not be affected by the mistakes of his team (who are vying also for the WCC).

[racechick]

I think if it's something the team does they should deduct constructors points, if its something the driver does then the driver gets the penalty.
Regarding the safety aspect I agree with LRW, make a minimum stop time for wheel changes.

And how would you propose to penalise the driver?

Same sort of penalties as now depending on the crime, reprimand, drive through, grid penalty, time penalty, points deduction, race ban.

[Denthúl]

We have a Drivers WDC and a contructors WCC for a reason. If the team work well for the driver (and with him), they deserve a great result in the WCC.

Why should the driver get affected by the operational failures of his team? He's got a WDC to shoot for, and no doubt he needs his team for it but his efforts should not be affected by the mistakes of his team (who are vying also for the WCC).

Why should the "team" get affected by poor driving choices of the driver? They've got a WCC to shoot for, and no doubt they need their driver for it but their efforts should not be affected by the mistakes of their driver (who is vying also for the WCC).

Same sort of penalties as now depending on the crime, reprimand, drive through, grid penalty, time penalty, points deduction, race ban.

This smacks of double-standards. In this case, the team suffers as well as the driver, but you don't want the same thing the other way round. How is this possibly a fair outcome?

There are other issues, too.

Suppose the team runs an illegal component on their car during qualifying which gives them a significant advantage over the other teams, and their driver qualifies on pole position as a result. During scrutineering, the part is discovered, and under current rules the car would be declared illegal and the driver's times erased from the session. Now, the driver did not make the decision to run this component, but if you view the team and driver as separate entities then the driver suffers for the team's mistake. You could just dock the team WCC points, but is this fair on the competition? After all, the guy on pole is there because of an unfair advantage, so this is going to cause issues with other teams.

On the other hand, let's say one driver intentionally collides with another during the race (I'm sure we all know who I'm talking about here). Ideally, they should be black-flagged for dangerous driving, in which case (viewing team and driver as separate again) the team would suffer for something totally out of their control (unless the team boss is Flavio Briatore, in which case that's not certain...). But could you really just dock the driver WDC points and leave someone like that out on the track?

Overall, things should balance out, as in some cases one party will suffer from the actions of the other, and in others the reverse will be true. By taking the win as a team, lose as a team approach, you should more or less achieve a balance (although in cases where you have a massively incompetent pit crew or driver, this may not necessarily be true, but such cases should be pretty rare).

[1Lemon]

Yeah but Denthul the team or driver aren't actually gaining from this, their massively losing out anyway. The penalty is just pointless.

[LRW]

I think if it's something the team does they should deduct constructors points, if its something the driver does then the driver gets the penalty.
Regarding the safety aspect I agree with LRW, make a minimum stop time for wheel changes.

And how would you propose to penalise the driver?

Same sort of penalties as now depending on the crime, reprimand, drive through, grid penalty, time penalty, points deduction, race ban.

But that penalises the team too then? You cant get away from the fact that, even thought there are two championships, it IS a team sport; and as a team they all are affected by the others actions.

[sagi58]

I have to agree that teams rather than drivers should be penalized for infractions directly attributable to them!

As for driver penalties, some kind of "progressive" system should be considered as a possibility for repeat offenders!

[Denthúl]

Yeah but Denthul the team or driver aren't actually gaining from this, their massively losing out anyway. The penalty is just pointless.

In this case it's not about negating an advantage, but imposing sanctions for dangerous activity. Is it the right way to go about it? I'm not sure it is, as it isn't looking at the cause of the issue and how to prevent it in the first place. What we need are improved pit stop procedures to stop this from happening in the future, and a minimum pit stop time as has been suggested by others is not the way to go, either.

I have to agree that teams rather than drivers should be penalized for infractions directly attributable to them!

As for driver penalties, some kind of "progressive" system should be considered as a possibility for repeat offenders!

Can you explain why you think it should work this way, but not the other way around, and how you would actually make that work in a way that is fair on other competitors as well?

[1Lemon]

Yeah exactly. If you bang your head on a table whilst picking something up under it, you're more careful next time you do that rather than chopping off parts of the table.

[racechick]

I can see your point Dent. But I still think there's two championships here and if the team does something that has nothing to do with the driver, the driver shouldn't be penalised. If the wheel comes off, the driver has already been penalised anyway because he's lost that race. Imagine the penultimate race, it's a very close fight between two drivers for the WDC and one has a wheel come off. He's hugely disadvantaged but still in with a fighting chance. oh, but then they give him a ten place grid penalty and he can't recover. Game over. That's not fair. The punishment does not fit the crime, or rather the wrong person is being penalised for the crime.

[sagi58]

I have to agree that teams rather than drivers should be penalized for infractions directly attributable to them!

As for driver penalties, some kind of "progressive" system should be considered as a possibility for repeat offenders!

Can you explain why you think it should work this way, but not the other way around, and how you would actually make that work in a way that is fair on other competitors as well?

I don't pretend to have all the answers; but, any system that is consistent, is fair on any competitor!

As for "how", you'd have to take a good look at the severity of the different penalties. Some are
dangerous enough to everyone involved that if they were committed repeatedly, the penalty for
them would increase with each instance.

One example would be ignoring yellow flags! Another would be the controversial "faking" moves to
the left or right when another driver is trying to pass.

I'm sure there would probably be some penalties that needn't have progressive penalties attached
to them, such as a false start.

Obviously, I haven't looked at each and every infraction; but, if we want the rules to be fair, they
need to be consistent and doled out impartially. Is that a reality? I don't know! But, is the system
we have now any more consistent or impartial?

[acosmichippo]

I can see your point Dent. But I still think there's two championships here and if the team does something that has nothing to do with the driver, the driver shouldn't be penalised. If the wheel comes off, the driver has already been penalised anyway because he's lost that race. Imagine the penultimate race, it's a very close fight between two drivers for the WDC and one has a wheel come off. He's hugely disadvantaged but still in with a fighting chance. oh, but then they give him a ten place grid penalty and he can't recover. Game over. That's not fair. The punishment does not fit the crime, or rather the wrong person is being penalised for the crime.

There are two issues being argued here:

1) inappropriate penalty for loose wheels

2) penalizing the driver and team together.

Regarding #1, I agree. I don't think it is a very good idea. But if they do it, I do not think they should penalize only the team. Here's why (and this argument goes for other penalties too) - the driver can be part of the fault for pitstop mishaps. What if the driver takes off too soon? What if he overshoots the pit, causing chaos before the tire swap? Granted, the team should be able to recover from that, but that still can put part of the blame on the driver. So the problem with this is deciding when things "have nothing to do with the driver" (and vice versa). It isn't always so cut and dry. Then you leave the decision in the hands of the FiA or race stewards, and I don't think anyone really wants that.

[What's Burning?]

Aren't all of these nuances what the stewards are supposed to be there to decide?

[SoullessPolack]

I think you guys are forgetting that this is a team sport. Yes, there are two championships, but none of those are attainable without the both major elements of the team; driver and everyone else. Teams should get punished as a whole. What better way to know you have to fix your mistake and never do it again, then by knowing you have let down everyone on your team. This happens all the time in other team sports. If you let your ego get the best of you in football and punch a player, you're going to get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The whole team is punished as a result of your stupidity. If you commit a flagrant foul in basketball, the whole team suffers as a result. As a driver, you may have had absolutely zero to do with a wheel coming off, but your mechanic didn't do his job properly. As a mechanic, you have nothing to do with how the driver drives, yet he may make a mistake and spin out (Vettel Canada '10) and lose the team a 25 point victory. Let me state it again: it's a team sport. For those of you who have played sports before, you know what it's like. You have your lowest of lows together, but you also have your highest of highs together.

Regarding the penalty, I don't think it is unjust. Changing a gearbox prematurely hurts no one directly, yet it's a five position grid penalty. A loose tire/wheel can easily kill someone, or at least injure them. Make the penalty harsh, and the teams will consider it more. I think the only thing that would be more effective is a rules change, but then you're getting into changing the nature of the sport and the excitement it brings.