F1 News: F1 faces pressure to introduce penalties for causing a red flag in qualifying

Formula 1's qualifying rules have received significant criticism in recent months, following a series of late red flags impacting drivers on their final runs.

There is an increasing demand amongst drivers for F1 to enforce a rule that punishes those that cause yellow or red flags at the end of qualifying.

Traditionally, the subject of drivers being accused of crashing out late in qualifying - whether intentionally or not - has been the cause of great controversy.

Proving that a driver has deliberately caused a yellow/red flag in qualifying is difficult, which has intensified calls for F1 to penalise drivers by deleting their fastest laps.

Irrespective of whether late qualifying incidents are intentional, it seems reasonable that drivers who prevent others from improving should lose their fastest attempts.

This eliminates any chance of a driver deliberately crashing, a subject which has seen renewed interest in light of the more recent analysis of Perez's controversial Monaco crash.

Carlos Sainz is one of the drivers to call for this change, with McLaren's Zak Brown echoing similar thoughts to the media:

"They do that in other forms of motorsport, the penalties, you just lose your fastest lap that session.

"And all the drivers tend to do one-lap runs, so that would penalise the driver if it was intentional or unintentional, right?

"Because you've messed up someone else's lap. I think that's an easy solution, it can be implemented right away.

"You cause a driver to have to back out, you lose your lap, you get to go again and maybe you won't have a chance.

"Maybe you will, or you have to use another set of tyres."

It remains unclear if F1 will change this aspect of qualifying in 2023, which is one of the more objectively fixable grey areas in the sport.

If penalties are not introduced to address this issue, it will undoubtedly remain an area of contention.