Toto Wolff has put forward two solutions to solve Formula 1 track limits after a farcical Austrian Grand Prix. In Qualifying, 47 laps were deleted by stewards for drivers exceeding the white lines at Turns 9 or 10, with a staggering 1,200 reports being triggered during the race, working out at 16.9 on average per lap over the 71 laps. It was not until 21:45 local time in Austria that the FIA published the final classification, nearly five hours after Max Verstappen won the race. In the end, multiple penalties were handed out, with Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon all the big losers, with Sainz losing two places to Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso. Hamilton was handed a 10 second penalty, on top of the five-seconds he served during the race, demoting him to eighth place - although Mercedes did not lose any points as George Russell was promoted to seventh in a swap of positions. Post-race, Wolff addressed the situation, believing F1 has two option to solve track limits.
Wolff's solutions
"Everybody really is in the worst possible situation, with the regulations and the race-track and the FIA trying to enforce them to the best of their ability," Wolff told media including RacingNews365. "There are cameras and sensors and they spent some time looking at it, and we did the same back at base, looking at all of the onboards just to make sure that we weren't penalised versus all the other teams. "But for the fans, teams and drivers, it is super frustrating to keep those penalties coming, but there's only two solutions. "You can either come back to sausage kerbs and break the drivers and the cars, or just remove [track limits] overall and let them race the fastest line. "We need to find a solution for the interest of the track, which is a super and traditional track, and for the stakeholders because we want to achieve spectacular racing that is not influenced by penalties given for the right reasons." Wolff's counterpart at Red Bull, Christian Horner branded the situation as "amateurish" and put forward the idea of a gravel trap on the outside of Turns 9 and 10 to deter drivers from running wide.
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