The FIA will continue to enforce track limits and punish those that continuously gain an advantage by cutting a corner or running wide, despite a plea from the F1 Strategy Group to relax the rules.
The Strategy Group, which met on Thursday in Geneva, asked the FIA's Charlie Whiting to avoid penalising drivers that run wide – something that is punished with a deleted time during qualifying or a drive-through penalty if caught doing so four or more times during the race.
Whiting has however resisted those calls, believing it would lead to a free-for-all whereby the drivers would simply make up their own circuit by taking the fastest route.
"It was proposed by some that we should take a completely relaxed view on track limits," said Whiting during a media briefing on Friday. "But I felt that was inappropriate. I think we should carry on doing what we do."
Several circuits have begun introducing higher kerbs which deter drivers from cutting certain corners, something Whiting says is beginning to solve the problem, but added that there is a way to go until it becomes a non-issue.
"My principal aim has always been trying to get the track to conform to the track limits, if you see what I mean. I think by and large we've done that, but there are certain corners on certain tracks that do present us with little problems. We are getting rid of them one by one.
"Here I think we're in a similar position to Hungary. Turn 1 here, it's a similar sort of thing, we saw 93 cars go off there today [in FP1] so we need to have a careful think what to do tomorrow.
"The difficulty of allowing complete freedom, i.e. allowing everyone to go wide and taking no notice of it, is simply that there would be a different track, fundamentally. It would be faster and with less run-off area. So we couldn't possibly contemplate that."
