Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images
After grid box penalties in the first two races, F1 and FIA adjust the size of the boxes ahead of the Australian Grand Prix
Following grid box penalties in each of the first two races of the 2023 Formula 1 season, FIA adjusted the size of the grid boxes ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. Starting with this weekend’s race, the grid boxes at the start will be wider by 20 cm.
FIA is also adding a new “guide line,” or center line, in the middle of the grid box to help drivers get aligned properly at the start.
In the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon was given a five-second penalty for not being inside the grid box at the start of the race. This touched off a series of mistakes by the Alpine driver and his team, and Ocon ultimately retired from the season-opening race.
Then at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Fernando Alonso was given a five-second penalty of his own. Later in the race, questions arose whether Alonso served the penalty properly, or his team began working on his AMR23 before the full five seconds elapsed. Word came down following the race — and the podium celebration that acknowledged Alonso as the third-place finisher — that Alonso was being hit with an additional ten-second penalty, which dropped him into P4.
However, Alonso ultimately won his appeal, and was reinstated to his original third-place finish.
And eventually the third-place trophy.
Here is a look at the new grid boxes, along with the new center line, as provided by MotorSportWeek:
You can see the new, wider box, in contrast to the faded paint on the prior grid box.
Here is another look at the new grid boxes, from F1:
The wider boxes should make it easier for the drivers to align properly at the start, and this change will likely be welcomed by the drivers. Following his mishaps during the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ocon argued that with the new generation of F1 cars, visibility issues made it difficult to properly align at the start. “Unfortunately, you can’t see very well in these cars, especially not when you’re on the grid like that,” said Ocon after the race. “You can see the yellow line as a reference, but it is up to me to fix it.”
Following the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, a number of drivers addressed the difficulty of getting aligned properly in the grid box. Following the race, both George Russell, Sergio Pérez, and Max Verstappen spoke to this issue.
“It’s incredibly difficult [to see the grid box]. We’re sat so low and to put some perspective, we only see probably the top four or five inches of the tyre so you can’t actually see the ground itself,” said Russell in the post-race press conference. “We’ve got these big long yellow lines pointing out… I can’t even see the yellow line, let alone the white lines determining your lateral position. It’s really, really tough so that’s why I think in this regard we need to show a little bit more common sense.”
“The visibility is just really poor in the car, that is I think, probably the main issue where you end up sometimes not fully, correctly in your box,” added Verstappen.
Pérez, the winner of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, echoed those thoughts. “Yeah, it’s really difficult just to see where you’ve stopped. I think, in my opinion I just overdid it and I stopped too early, but you have no idea when you are in the car. You don’t know if you went too far or from behind or too far forward,” said Pérez. “So I think it’s something… we need better visibility to be able to come up with a better idea than we currently have it. It’s good that there is a rule in place, but at the same time, sometimes it’s like luck, to be honest, where you position yourself.”
Alonso talked about the new grid boxes, as well as the central line, during press conferences ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. While he believes the wider boxes should make a difference, he remains skeptical about the central line.
“It is difficult [to see the grid box]. And yeah, apparently this year, it seems even more, because in two races to have two penalties is a little bit strange. But yeah, I mean, in my case, it didn’t change much from last year,” said Alonso earlier this week. “It is difficult and we are very concentrated on the yellow line to not go too far forward. So, you approached the box, let’s say, not looking at the box, you are looking on one side of the cockpit. So maybe that’s a bit of a distraction. But yeah, I made a mistake there. So we will try to be more focused on the box this weekend and avoid any penalty.”
He continued:
“The central line? I don’t think so. Because as I said, you approach the box looking sideways, so you’re not looking forward, so that’s the biggest difficulty – but the 20 centimetres will help I guess. There’s going to be some circuits, maybe Monaco, or Imola that you start a little bit sideways anyway,” said Alonso. “Because if not you crash if you start there straight. So, we’ll have to see how we apply the penalties and things like that in those races. But yeah, no one wants to get a penalty for the start. Also, I think the FIA doesn’t want to have any problem with that, because there is no performance advantage, as long as you don’t go too forward. So yeah, hopefully we avoid anything from now on.”
Hopefully the changes make it easier for drivers to get aligned this weekend, and we can avoid related penalties starting with the Australian Grand Prix.
