McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has emphasised the need for Formula 1 to learn from the track limits controversy that unfolded at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend and ensure it does not happen again.
Several drivers received penalties during the race for exceeding the white lines, but Aston Martin lodged a protest after the chequered flag, claiming that multiple breaches had gone unnoticed by the stewards.
In an interview with Sky Sports, Brown stated, “There was definitely a better solution than what happened.
“That being said, it’s a track that’s unique, and I’ve never seen track limits like that before. I think we as a sport can do a better job of, when the race results come out, those are the race results.
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“I can see how it happened, I just think we need to anticipate a little bit better as we already knew on Friday it was going to be a challenge.”
Expressing his concerns, Brown continued, “I think there are a variety of ways to address it moving forward.
“What is most important is that when we have a mishap, we learn from it and we don’t let it happen again.
“We need to make sure it never happens again, and that we do a proper debrief and understand how we could have prevented it in the first place or handled it differently.”
The FIA has reiterated its desire to the Austrian Grand Prix organisers to implement measures to avoid a recurrence of such a situation in the future.
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Brown applauded the FIA for confronting the issue directly instead of sweeping it under the carpet.
“I’ll take my hat off to the FIA for addressing the issue, and I think it would have been easy to say, ‘this is going to cause a lot of noise, let’s just kind of get it right next time,'” he said.
“For them to put their hands up and say there were some penalties that needed to be addressed, I thought that was a brave decision. But we can’t have it again. We can’t have a race, and then five hours later you have that degree of change in the result.”