Lando Norris has described the FIA’s new pit-lane overtaking ban for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as a ‘terrible rule’. Race director Niels Wittich made a last-minute change ahead of Saturday’s running, prohibiting cars from overtaking before the pit exit line.
There has been plenty of chopping and changing with the rules relating to overtaking in the pit lane in the past couple of months. The issues, at heart, stem from the maximum out-lap time introduced by the FIA this season to reduce the negative impact of traffic during qualifying sessions.
Due to this change, drivers have struggled to carve out an ample section of track in which to place their cars on out-laps without going over the maximum lap time. To navigate this problem, George Russell and Max Verstappen stopped at the pit exit line during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix to squeeze out larger gaps.
This was frowned upon by other drivers and team principals who called for action. In response to these demands, the FIA forced drivers to create an invisible ‘slow lane’ on the left-hand side of the pit exit at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
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However, in the second practice session in Abu Dhabi on Friday the issue reared its head again after Verstappen attempted to force his way around the outside of Lewis Hamilton before ducking down the inside of Pierre Gasly.
The reigning world champion nearly made contact with the wall on both occasions and, given the nature of the Yas Marina Circuit pit exit, recovering vehicles following a crash down in the underpass section is far from an enviable task and would have caused massive disruption.
Therefore, ahead of FP3 on Saturday, Wittich informed the teams of his latest change. In his revised event notes he said: “Overtaking is prohibited in the pit exit road unless a car slows with an obvious problem.”
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Norris, for his part, was unimpressed by the latest changes. When asked whether it had worked, he replied: “No, I think it is a terrible rule. The thing is they have to have the rule, because of the other silly rule that they made us do.
“If there’s a red flag and three minutes left, there’s going to be like three cars who get to do a lap so…I don’t know. We should just go back to the way it was before.”
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