The FIA has made some minor tweaks to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in an attempt to crack down on track limits violations and avoid the same controversy as 2016. A number of kerbs have been added to various corners on the track and further regulations will police how the drivers rejoin the track.
Unofficial diagram of the new track limits in turn 1 (not to scale)
One of these corners is the turn one. This was a talking point of last year’s grand prix. Lewis Hamilton had run wide and cut across the grass on the opening lap, but was not told to give the position to Nico Rosberg behind because the stewards felt that no advantage was gained. Near the closing stages of the race, Max Verstappen committed a similar infraction when defending his position, but was told to give his position to Sebastian Vettel. He refused and was later stripped of his podium position.
To prevent such controversy this year, the FIA has laid down 5cm high kerbs in the grass between turns one and two, as well as turns two and three. Drivers that run wide over the first set of kerbs will need to rejoin the track by going around the second set, nullifying any advantage gained by the shortcut. Failing to do so will result in a penalty.
Similar restricts have also been added to turns eight and eleven, at which drivers will need to rejoin the track on the outside of an orange kerb.
The recent controversy at the United States Grand Prix regarding the inconsistency of track limits enforcement will likely put a lot of pressure on the FIA to penalize track limits. It’s expected that there will be very strict enforcement for all drivers that abuse the track limits.
