How grid penalties reveal a bigger problem for F1

If you thought the Italian Grand Prix's grid penalty farce was bad for fans at home, you should have seen the chaos on the startline at Monza as the countdown to the race got under way.

With engines revving away in the garages, the grid girls - following their meticulous rehearsals the previous night - were all in place and waiting the pitlane to open and the arrival of the cars.

But suddenly a big, "No, no, no, no" rang out, as one of the officials organising the build-up noticed that Stoffel Vandoorne's grid marker was in the wrong place.

Rather than being in eighth as the original provisional grid had indicated, the Belgian should have been shuffled to the back of the grid as the result of a Sunday morning engine change. But where to?

And it was only when Vandoorne's grid placard was grabbed to be marched to the back of the grid, and a subsequent reordering began of the other drivers around it, that it was discovered that Sergio Perez was in the wrong slot too.

Cue much head scratching, some furious Italian gesticulations, the checking of various bits of paper and finally a few loud instructions to move people and marker boards around. In the end it was all sorted, but it didn't look pretty at the time.

It was a moment that provided living proof of how Monza had reached a new chaotic low in this era of grid penalties - with hardly anyone knowing for sure exactly how the grid would be formed until the cars were actually there.

As Red Bull boss Christian Horner said: "Even going to the grid, we were trying to work out if we were going to be 12th or 13th, because Perez had picked up a penalty but we didn't know if he had picked it up before or after somebody. It is too confusing."

In total nine drivers were on the receiving end of penalties for either engine or gearbox changes, and it produced some bizarre stats.

Carlos Sainz, who got a 10-place grid penalty for fitting a new MGU-H, started from where he had qualified because so many cars ahead of him also dropped back.

Kevin Magnussen ended up with his best grid position of the season, starting ninth, despite having been eliminated in Q1.

Sauber too had its best grid start since the 2015 Italian Grand Prix with 11th and 12th, despite being the slowest overall out of those who had completed the session.

This was not a time that F1 showed itself in a good light.

Of course, grid penalties have become a part of F1 ever since long-life components were introduced. But Monza perhaps put in sharp focus how the situation has grown so out of control.

It was a feeling that had further been embellished when, on the eve of the weekend, Ross Brawn coincidentally mentioned in an interview responding to reader questions that the penalty system annoyed him.

But what is the answer?

The logical suggestion that gained a lot of traction was that rather than punishing the drivers, it should be the teams alone that should face the brunt of the punishment.

The issue of grid penalties cuts right through the current turbo hybrid formula. They are the response to a problem that shouldn't be there

It has been suggested that there should be fines imposed, or even constructors' championship points docked, for teams going over the engine or gearbox allocation.

But, as many quickly pointed out about, this approach would solve one problem (stopping drivers losing grid slots) and open up an entirely new issue: that a team could throw engine after engine at its star man if it only cared about the drivers' championship.

Would it be good for the show if a rich outfit gained benefit from running brand new engines at the final races of the season to help win the drivers' championship, while a rival that cared more about its constructors' championship position could only keep managing life from an old power unit?

Such a tainted (and expensive) finish to a title battle would cause uproar.

So, what about a system of competitive deterrents for taking extra engines or gearboxes?

What about stipulating that any fresh engines brought in must be to same spec as the previous one, so there is no competitive gain to be had from taking a penalty?

Or what about any manufacturers being forced to reveal the designs of their engines to rivals if they go above the engine limit?

Such ideas would be good for deterring teams from going one engine over the limit, but after that there would be little to stop them adding a further two, three or four more engines in to the pot. F1 would be back to square one.

The problem with trying to introduce clever rules is that teams will always find a way to work around them for competitive benefit - and there will be unintended consequences.

In fact, F1's long-life engine rule appears to be a classic example of that. When F1 agreed on a glide path to reduce the number of engines per year down to the three that are currently coming for 2018, the aim was to reduce costs dramatically.

It would seem logical to think that going from five engines to three engines per year would be cheaper - because of reduced production costs and fewer units being used.

But the reality has turned out to be different. One source has suggested that manufacturers are finding that proofing long-life components on the dynos to make sure they can last such increased mileage means that their costs are actually going up - so three engines are proving to be no less expensive (and maybe even more) than four or five.

If that really is the case then F1 needs to take action, because it makes no sense to open the door for even more penalty chaos in the future if there is no benefit in money-saving terms.

Ultimately, the issue of grid penalties cuts right through the current turbo hybrid formula.

For just like DRS is the solution to a problem that should not exist - F1 cars should have designs that allow drivers to overtake each other - so too grid penalties are the response to something that shouldn't be there.

F1 should have engine rules in place that are not so complicated for manufacturers that it has become borderline for even the best of them to get through the season without busting them.

The grid should also be competitive enough, with opportunities spread through the field, that teams are not faced with the option of taking 'tactical' changes to sacrifice one race in favour of another.

If Red Bull had the chance of winning at Monza, and knew other teams had just as good a chance in Singapore, there wouldn't have been the incentive to go tactical at one race and put your men at the back of the grid through choice.

DRS will go when the design of F1 cars are sorted, and so too F1 must work on rules that means we don't need grid penalties as deterrents, except in truly exceptional circumstances.

That means ramping up efforts to come up with better engine rules. It is about cheaper power units that are less complicated and much closer in performance levels - to put F1 back on an even keel (and let's not forget the volume either).

It's not going to happen quickly, but if any good comes out of the Monza chaos it is that senior F1 figures have woken up to the fact that things must change big time over the longer term.

Until then, though, we could yet face some more Monza scenarios - and more confused grid girls.