A worrying trend has been developing recently across multiple racing series and I've had enough. Will anything change? Probably not.
Here's some context:
It's 3am here in the midwestern US and I've just finished watching the Australian Grand Prix. A race which featured not one but two questionable red flags, a lap that didn't count, and a five-second penalty for a driver for crashing into the driver who finished in front of him on said lap. I'm raging, I've got a bit of a cold, and I'm very sleep-deprived, so you, dear reader, will probably not get the greatest piece of literature ever written in the following paragraphs. But who cares?
And that's the point.
The second red flag restart, which took place a few laps from the end of the race in Melbourne featured some of the worst driving I have seen in F1 in recent years. The only race which could top this would be the restart crash-fest at Mugello in 2020, otherwise no race or incident stands out to me in the decade or so which I have followed F1. What really stings about this incident at the restart, in which:
Carlos Sainz spun Fernando Alonso around;
Pierre Gasly went off the track and back onto it and into the side of his teammate;
Logan Sargeant rear-ended Nyck de Vries; and
Lance Stroll simply forgot about the existence of turn 3,
is that it's just the latest in a worrying pattern of lapses in judgement on the part of racecar drivers everywhere. Not just in F1. but in Indycar and NASCAR at least, and maybe even MotoGP as well if you want to throw that in there. At some point there has been a notable decline in either the outright talent, focus, or judgement ability in race car drivers across the board, and it really does risk things getting out of hand and into either farcical, or even dangerous territory. Here's a few examples which really wind me up:
F1
Well, the end of the Australian GP was a pretty good candidate for the worst a field of F1 drivers has looked as a collective for a long, long time. Cars spinning, crashing, driving off the track, driving back onto the track dangerously, driving into each other, it's got all the hallmarks of a disaster. This comes off the back of two consecutive races where at least one (and probably a lot more than one) driver has been penalized for being unable to park their car in a designated box. Parking! Before that I can't remember the last time this happened at all, let alone on consecutive weekends! Look, I get it, it's hard to see out of these F1 cars but in 2022 the grid boxes were SMALLER with the same size cars and there were no penalties that I can recall. It's effing parking for Christ's sake. But now suddenly that's too hard? What the hell?
Indycar
Usually Indycar is a happy medium between the tedium of an F1 race and the typical shambles of a NASCAR race (and I would consider myself a NASCAR fan, so this isn't some elitist bullshit, I've followed NASCAR for like 18 years, much longer than F1), but the first race of the year in St. Petersburg was a complete farce. On the opening lap, there was a massive pile up seemingly compounded by the drivers in the back absolutely not giving a shit and piling into the cars ahead at full speed.
There were other incidents too; like Kyle Kirkwood's airborne crash that could have been avoided. Then there was Colton Herta getting, in my opinion, completely fenced by Will Power with seemingly no repercussions for the Penske driver while Herta's race was over. Then there was the apocalyptic lack of awareness shown by Scott McLaughlin who though that coming straight out of the pits on cold tires wouldn't have any effect on his braking distance as he was about to be cleanly overtaken by Romain Grosjean for the win. It was sloppy all-round, and only half the cars finished the race, which is unacceptable.
NASCAR
Where do I start. It's probably not fair to include the Truck or Xfinity series, since these are supposed to be the "junior" drivers, but the frequency of avoidable crashes that have happened in the last three races is beyond stupid. I won't call it racing because it was not. So let's focus on the Cup Series. Admittedly, after two embarrassing races at the *fan-favorite* "Atlanta Superspeedway" or whatever you want to call it, the Cup drivers managed to keep it together (for the most part). But let's talk about the elephant in the room. Let's talk about COTA.
Everybody's got an opinion (and probably an issue) with the ending of the race, which was it's usual mix of shambolic bumper-to-bumper action. But honestly for me it's not the main issue I had. It's other things that ticked me off, like the way the drivers "overtake" or the way they can't keep the car on the goddamn track. Because NASCAR has the advantage of front and rear bumpers on their cars, the drivers can get away with some contact. That's fine. But it's the fact that 90% of the time the "contact" isn't a light brush, it's more like an effing freight train slamming into the back of the car in front, shoving them out of the way. That's not an overtake in my book. That's a goddamn drive through penalty for avoidable contact.
It doesn't take any skill to outbreak yourself by 10-20m and use the car in front as a backstop. It does take skill to set yourself off-line and set up a pass in a traction or breaking zone one, two, four or more corners ahead of time. That's called racecraft. Not everyone is good at it. Now, there was a great handful of laps in the race where William Byron and Tyler Reddick were racing each other hard but clean, with switchbacks, outbreaking maneuvers, alternate lines, and more in what was a refreshing display of some decent effing driving for once. So it can be done. It just seems like drivers don't want to do it. Why? Because...
There's no accountability
People give the FIA a lot of shit for things they do, and yes, for sure there are times when they really do mess things up. But they really do try to make sure everything is right. Most of the time. unless it's the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix or it's raining. With the rulebook they have, there's many ways drivers can get penalties; and when a driver messes up, guess what! They get a penalty! Crazy, right? I mean as I'm writing this Carlos Sainz is fuming somewhere in Melbourne having been given a five second time penalty for causing a collision on a voided restart. But you know what? He caused a collision. What happens when you cause a collision? You get freaking penalized. Job done, move on.
A lot of racing series don't want to give penalties because they want to "encourage racing" and not have the drivers be afraid of getting penalized for hitting another driver. Well you know what? If a driver is too afraid of getting a penalty because they might hit someone, then maybe they're in over their heads and need to go do something else. Capable drivers will not be afraid, because they'll be capable of racing properly. So what if 20 cars go steaming into turn 1 at COTA and cause a collision? Penalize them all. Not the race director's problem. The drivers need to follow the rules. If they can't, then they shouldn't be driving.