Who is to blame for engine penalties?

Criticism of Formula 1's engine regulations has become deafening in recent races, particularly relating to the token upgrade system and grid penalties.

There is something amusing about drivers receiving grid penalties worth several dozen places on a 20-car grid, but the suggestion that it is that confusing to fans is somewhat patronising. The bottom line is that the rules are there for a very valid reason.

On Tuesday Gary Anderson argued that the grid penalty rules were ridiculous. Yes, the number of penalties being doled out is absurd, but the blame must surely be with the struggling engine manufacturers?

Since the 1.6-litre V6 turbo plus ERS engines were introduced at the start of 2014, how many engine penalties have Mercedes and Ferrari copped? Their stats don't support the suggestion that the regulations are unrealistic.

Mercedes has produced the benchmark engine, and while Ferrari's 2014 power unit was extremely disappointing, the leap it made this year as a result of clear and decisive action taken early last season proves that making big strides is not impossible.

Christian Horner and Eric Boullier's teams keep finding themselves with penalties © XPB

So what does that say about serial penalty-coppers Renault and Honda? Neither has produced a competitive engine and reliability has been a serious problem.

Should the FIA be embarrassed about its regulations - created, after all, in discussion with the engine manufacturers themselves - or should Renault and Honda be the ones feeling the shame?

The Renault scenario is baffling. There are good people at Renault Sport F1, which did a formidable job at mastering the demands of the exhaust-blown diffuser era and played a key part in the dominance of Red Bull.

So the only conclusion is that there are political and organisational difficulties there that are holding it back and mean that the personnel there do not have the correct resources to deliver.

Whether recreating its own works team will solve this is a big question mark, but you'd have to say that if you can't get you engine programme in order, adding a whole race team on top of it is not an obvious answer to the problems.

Then there is Honda. While it is not a surprise to see it struggling thanks to joining F1's new-engine era a year late, the Japanese company has not made life easy for itself.

Bold proclamations about how it would perform relative to Mercedes have been a noose round its neck. Even early in the season, when the extent of its problems were obvious, there were still claims that it would be up there with Mercedes by the end of the year.

That's embarrassing for a company that rightly prides itself for its road-car engine technology.

But for all Honda's incredible success during the first McLaren era, it's worth noting that much of the story of its time in F1 over the decades has been one of underachievement.

Honda's last F1 programme was unsuccessful © XPB

Four times, it has joined F1 and only in one of those (the late-1980s) has it been successful. And even then, that was against limited opposition and it was soon overhauled by Renault, which enjoyed an era of dominance in the mid-1990s.

It's still early days in its fourth coming, certainly, but tackling weaknesses depends on identifying and accepting what areas need to be addressed. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is not Honda's strong point and it is concerning to see proclamations of its strengths not necessarily backed up by what is delivered on track.

Of course, had Honda been a little more humble in its predictions for this year, the heat would be off. There's nothing wrong with setting high standards, and beating Mercedes is what Honda rightly aspires to. But setting such a short timescale has created a rod for its own back.

Had it targeted Mercedes in the vague long-term and emphasised the need to go step by step, it would be easier to have confidence that Honda will get there and accept the progress that is being made. Instead, everyone (perhaps even McLaren, initially) is expecting sudden large strides that don't materialise.

Which brings us back to the regulations. The 'token' system for 2015 allowed half of the engine as defined by the regulations to be changed. In real terms, this amounts to far more than 50 per cent according to those with far deeper knowledge of the engines than me. So the limitations are not currently as draconian as they might seem.

The idea that Renault or Honda are sitting on a raft of changes they can't make but they know will take them a giant stride forward is fatuous. If anything, were development unrestricted, it would lead to them falling further behind in the short term.

Honda had bold aims of catching Mercedes, but finds itself lapped instead © LAT

You can only make progress if you have a clear direction to do so. These days, trial-and-error by testing is not a valid way of doing things. Yes, more testing could potentially help - but it would also raise budgets. The key is that the strugglers need to understand deeply their weaknesses and how to tackle them. Ferrari proved this is possible.

If anything, allowing even greater testing and development might hasten the exit of the struggling engine manufacturers, leaving F1 without much in the way of diversity of powerplants. We're already starting to see that trend even with the restrictions as teams don't want to be disadvantaged by weak engines.

And this is the key reason behind the structure of the engine usage and development regulations. Firstly, it would vastly increase a manufacturer's spend to allow a significant amount of testing. Secondly, it would inevitably cost the teams more and help to widen the gap between rich and poor.

After all, let's imagine engines were not restricted. The Mercedes works team could run them at full whack every time they took to the track. But the likes of Williams, Force India and Lotus would have to be far more careful in terms of life because of the cost of replacing engines.

The engine restrictions are a means to close the gap between the big and small teams, which is so often something that fans claim they want to see happen. So the rules are not there without reason.

In any system, looking at the underachievers as your benchmark is a recipe for disaster. Honda and Renault would be doing worse than Ferrari and Mercedes even under freer engine rules, so let's not let them off the hook by blaming rules that they both signed up for.

There are limitations in the rules and there perhaps does need to be a mechanism that gives the strugglers the potential to catch up.

Renault was previously helped by being allowed to 'unfreeze' its engines © LAT

There was an interpretation of the rules used in the era of Max Mosley's FIA presidency that was used to do this, and it was a very flexible and useful back-door way of doing things that allowed engine equivalency during the previous-generation freeze. But with little desire to use that now, and no formal means, the door is closed.

If you want competition, have competition but accept that different competitors will perform at different levels unless controlled. This is the problem of those who complain loudest - they seem to want complete technical freedom but guaranteed ultra-close racing. Sorry, but those are very often (even if not always) mutually exclusive.

When it comes to defining the next-generation engines, a lot of work needs to go into getting the regulations right and understanding what they are trying to achieve.

There are also ways of tackling the topic of costs - perhaps with an engine-deal price cap for independents. But that can't be introduced once the horse has bolted and needs to be committed to right at the start.

The current rules are not perfect, and it's essential that the lessons of the past are learned. Unfortunately, this is often not the case in the current quick-fix, easy answer climate.

There was also some criticism of the penalty Max Verstappen and Toro Rosso received for the car shedding bodywork when it was sent out late in Q1 at Monza following an engine change.

Firstly, the age-old complaint that the driver shouldn't suffer because of a team error. That will become a valid argument the day a driver's success isn't largely defined by the capabilities of the car. Motorsport is a team effort and to suggest the driver should be exempt from punishments for things not directly in their control is not valid.

Toro Rosso was punished for allowing Verstappen's engine cover to fly off © LAT

Secondly, just take a look at the comments Verstappen made after qualifying.

"We were really in a hurry," said Verstappen. "Normally we wouldn't get it done but I was quite surprised.

"The bodywork was only 50 per cent [secured] from all the bolts - we thought it would hold on as it is quite strong. I think it just got a bit too much vibration out of the pit."

It was clear that STR knowingly sent the car out in this condition. The potential consequences of bodywork flying around a live racetrack were horrifically underlined at the Pocono IndyCar race only a few weeks ago when Justin Wilson died after being hit on the crash helmet by a piece of debrus. To create such a situation by calculation is not acceptable.

So this was pretty reckless from Toro Rosso and, if anything, it was fortunate to escape greater punishment. After all, this was calculated rather than the result of finger trouble in a high-pressure live pitstop.

In fairness to Toro Rosso, there has been no suggestion that it thinks the penalty was in any way unfair - but there are those on the outside world that do seem to think this.

Knee-jerk criticism of the penalty system is too easy. The way penalties are doled out isn't perfect, but there seems to be a tendency to blame external factors rather than those responsible.

In these cases, Honda, Renault and Toro Rosso only have themselves to blame for the penalties. At this high level, the buck stops with the competitor - albeit with the caveat that the inequitable awarding of money to the teams does created an uneven playing field.

That's the beauty of sporting competition. If someone is doing better than you under the same rules, you only have yourself to blame.