Where common sense faltered to F1's letter of the law

Formula 1 fans remember the name Markus Winkelhock. And with good reason.

At the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, the German driver made his only F1 start in a race that featured catastrophic rain - as evidenced by the cars flying off the road in the early stages. But he also made history by leading the race for his Spyker squad, and did so because of a pitstop call to change tyres on the formation lap.

Exactly 13 years ago, Winkelhock was swapping slick rubber for wets. Last weekend at the Hungaroring, the two Haas drivers - Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean - took slicks after initially lining up on extreme wet tyres and intermediates respectively.

By coming in and not taking the start, they were able to join the race on the perfect rubber, as there was already a dry line visible for much of the formation lap, which made Magnussen realise he was doubly in trouble with his blue-walled tyres.

"We've done the wrong thing, there's already a dry line," he reported.

In they came, lined up at the end of the pitlane, danced their way around the slippery first lap (things were definitely still greasy), and by the time the rest of the field had followed suit over the following four laps they ran third and fourth - behind only the stunning Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

For a team such as Haas - and particularly in what seems set to be another tough campaign for the American squad - a call like this can make all the difference. Although Magnussen and Grosjean slipped back as the much faster cars largely recovered, the former held on to finish ninth on the road - in this writer's mind a Sunday performance only topped by Hamilton.

But, nearly three hours after the race, both Haas drivers were hit with time additions, which put 10 seconds to their race times and dropped them one place each. Magnussen still secured Haas' first point of the season as he had a 20.566s margin in hand over Charles Leclerc - frustrated by balance issues and a poor strategy call in his Ferrari.

The stewards deemed Haas had contravened Article 27.1 of F1's sporting rules, which states a "driver must drive the car alone and unaided", and limits the radio instructions drivers can receive. The document relating to the initial summons stated the infraction concerned "driver aids on the formation lap".

Haas' defence centred on 'Technical Directive 011-17', which was issued in 2017 and concerns instructions being given to drivers regarding tyre warm-up - but this was rejected. Essentially, this rule is an extension of the clampdown on driver radio coaching that was deemed too prevalent from the 2014 season.

"The only communication that can be made with a driver during the formation lap, so from the pitwall to the driver, is to do with safety matters" Michael Masi

"I can explain that one," said F1 race director, Michael Masi. "There was a technical directive that came out I think in 2017 now, clarifying what communications the team can make to the drivers on the formation lap, which relates to Article 27.1 of the sporting regulations - that the driver must drive the car alone and unaided.

"The essence and the core part of that summons is that both drivers were called in by their engineers to change tyres on the formation lap, which is not permitted within that technical directive that was issued at the time, and in essential terms, the only communication that can be made with a driver during the formation lap, so from the pitwall to the driver, is to do with safety matters. So if it is an issue of imminent safety, that communication can take place."

Now, yes, no driver/team call should breach safety rules - and of course F1 doesn't want to have the entire field piling into the pits at the end of the formation lap. There was enough chaos in the early laps, with Carlos Sainz Jr lucky not to have a bigger pitlane incident than striking a marker board after Williams released Nicholas Latifi into his path - with a five-second penalty correctly dished out.

But, as was the case with Winkelhock and the Haas duo, this gamble can only ever really apply to tailenders. The leaders simply cannot afford to give up track position, and in any case should really have the pace to overcome slower cars leaping up the order in the end.

As Verstappen said of Red Bull keeping him out until lap four, which jumped him past Lance Stroll, such is his skill in those conditions: "You don't want to go too quickly to a slick. You don't want to be the first one and risk that when you are in the top three. And so doing one extra lap, it never really hurts that bad."

But the fundamental issue at play here is the letter of the law in this case. Because, really, calling a driver in to change tyres on the formation lap isn't helping them drive. The logical extension of this is surely that any call to pit at any time is helping a driver drive.

So, the FIA was right to issue the penalties to the Haas drivers, but only because there was no wiggle room for common sense to be applied. It was the same in the past with team orders and the ban that came in for 2003 after the previous year's Austrian GP, which led to shambles such as Germany 2010 (of course involving the same Ferrari squad!).

The FIA was also correct not to issue a jump-start penalty for Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas' fumble as the lights were changing.

"There is probably two parts to that," said Masi. "It's the means by which a false start is determined. [This] is actually clearly detailed in the sporting regulations, and has been the same process for a number of years, which is the transponder which is fitted to each car is the judgement mechanism, and there is a sensor in the track as well.

"There is a tolerance within that, and as we saw in Japan last year [with Sebastian Vettel], that is the determining factor, so there was nothing further to have a look at. We spoke to the timekeepers immediately, and they reviewed all of the data, and that was the end of the matter."

This is a straightforward case. If no breach was detected, no penalty can be applied. Common sense. Although perhaps a communication explaining this would've quashed the flames of internet fury in some quarters...

Common sense was also applied in the matter of Red Bull using 'leaf blowers', apparently, to dry Alex Albon's grid spot. The investigation concluded the team had not in fact been doing that - so no penalty.

And for what it's worth, the decision to give Kimi Raikkonen a time penalty was correct because he was so far past his grid spot when the lights went out...

Ultimately, this rule probably needs to be reassessed so that it is clear and satisfactory for all parties

It seems silly to be debating the rights and wrongs of the Haas penalties, but there are serious issues to consider. First, AlphaTauri correctly (by the letter of the law) ignored Daniil Kvyat's request to pit for slicks on the formation lap and can be rightly frustrated that Haas ultimately benefitted from breaking the rule.

But Haas too missed out as the punishment cost the team a point in a year where it may well struggle to score regularly given the deficit of its customer Ferrari power unit.

Ultimately, this rule probably needs to be reassessed so that it is clear and satisfactory for all parties. And in any case, surely no one wants moments of magic such as Winkelhock's time in the (clouded) limelight to be missing from F1's folklore.