FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting will meet with Formula One teams and drivers to discuss the possibility of introducing a penalty points system to F1.
The system could see drivers picking up points on their driver’s superlicence, which could culminate in a driver picking up a race ban if they are hit with enough points over a certain period.
Many people around the sport believe this could prove to be a much more popular system that currently sees drivers and teams handed with reprimands, grid penalties and fines.
The new system would see an end to fines, something the teams are obviously keen to avoid following a recent hike in the entry fees, but a fairly punishment system is also needed in Formula One.
Race bans are rare in F1, Romain Grosjean was the first driver for 18 years to be banned from a race following an incident at the first corner in Spa last year.
The Lotus driver had been caught up in a number of first lap incidents last season, with the FIA losing patience and eventually hitting Grosjean with a ban.
Most thought that the ban was fair, but other drivers who clocked up a number of driver offences in the past such as Lewis Hamilton or Pastor Maldonado avoided such a punishment, so there will need to be careful thought in implementing such a system and it would appear that Formula One plan to run a system in private before making an further plans public.
‘We need to make sure a driver deserves any ban. We will be monitoring offences and running a system in the background to see how it would all work if put into practice,’ Whiting has been quoted by Sky Sports.
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