In an effort to prevent frequent over-the-track violations, the FIA organisers have added gravel shoulders to the outside of hard shoulders in corners 4, 9 and 10, but what about the trial of the shoulders in the event of a four-wheel white line that would cost drivers more lap times?
Last year's Austrian Grand Prix had more than 1,200 course violations, and as many as 13 laps and 47 laps were cancelled in the sprint qualifying and qualifying sessions, but only six laps were cancelled in this weekend's sprint qualifying session for exceeding the track limits, including the one in which Tsunoda spun out of control here, and more importantly, none of those six laps came from the final qualifying session, which shows that when the track and the car need to be pushed to their limits, Many riders opted for a safer route through the shoulders of Turns 9 and 10. And of those six laps, only Hamilton in SQ1 and Sargent in SQ2 were suspected of improving lap times.
Perhaps the most telling thing is Verstappen's fastest lap of 1:04.686 in sprint qualifying, which is 0.2 seconds slower than the fastest lap he set in qualifying last year, which is likely to be a deterrent to the drivers from the gravel buffer, suggesting that the design did have the effect that the FIA wanted to see, reducing the workload of the race officers, reducing the likelihood of misjudgements and being fairer to all drivers.