F1: Wolff wants track-limit rules scrapped

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes Formula 1's track-limit rules should be relaxed, with drivers allowed to use all of the asphalt to find the quickest line.

The FIA had moved to tighten the rules on abusing track limits, only for the Strategy Group last week to agree to veer away from the imposition of penalties for such offenses. But in Germany last weekend, FIA race director Charlie Whiting said that would be "inappropriate" and a directive was issued, that clarifying limits were to be adhered to at certain corners at Hockenheim.

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"If you go off the track you should be hitting a wall or on a gravel bed and if there's tarmac, let them take the quickest line. What's the difference?" Wolff said.

"We have a million miles of run-off areas and it becomes less and less spectacular and we wonder why we have audiences with less interest in what we do. So my opinion is that be it Club or Copse [at Silverstone] or whatever, just let them drive the quickest line.

"If it is somewhere really unsafe because we are coming too close to the barriers, or when you rejoin you are putting others in danger, then look at the specifics of that one corner. But for the rest, just let them go, let them drive, [create] spectacular pictures.

"If you start to analyze the white line and whether a driver has put two centimeters of his tire on a white line and his lap time is going away, nobody understands anymore. This is not long jump, where two centimeters make the jump invalid – this is a six-kilometer track and two centimetres shouldn't be changing that."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes the rules need to be simplified.

"There is a white line that goes all the way round the circuit and one very easy way of [controlling track limits] is that if you have all four wheels over that line, you're out," he said. "In other sports, it seems to work whether it be with a ball or a foot or whatever it may be.

"There is a reluctance to do that, which is fair enough, and if there is a reluctance to do that, than you have to allow the drivers to use what is there. You can't have one rule for Turn 1 and another one for Turn 17 because that's too confusing for us within the paddock, let alone for the fans, to say he's a bit out there but he's a bit more out there.

"That for me isn't clear and something we need to move away from, so either come up with something simple or let them do what they like."

Originally on Autosport.com