After last week’s racing at the road course track at Circuit of the Americas, track limit has been the talk of the town. The officials at COTA had a difficult task of keeping a tab on drivers trying to cut the track short. However, that seems to have failed to keep the drivers in line.

A total of 40 track penalties were issued to the drivers over the weekend for exceeding track limits, and Shane van Gisbergen was the one who took the big blow. A massive 30-second penalty was handed to the Kiwi for exceeding track limits despite finishing second. As a result, he was demoted to the 27th spot in the standings after the race.

There have been suggestions about officiating the entire road course track for track limits, but van Gisbergen has other ideas. One that he feels will bring clarity amongst the drivers about not exceeding the limits during the race.

Shane van Gisbergen feels that the 30-second penalty is a bit too harsh on the drivers

Out of all the turns, NASCAR officials chose to police just the esses on the racetrack as they had removed the curbs. Adding turtles or speed bumps wasn’t an option for them to go with, so the best course of action was to keep the esses under scan. It wasn’t just van Gisbergen who had the bitter taste of being penalized, but HMS driver Chase Elliott also found himself on the receiving end of the officials.

It wasn’t even a deliberate attempt by Elliott to cut the track short and this is where SVG feels NASCAR could tone down their penalty calls. “You just need a bit more leeway, like the penalty didn’t really fit the crime. In Australia, we have this every year at Surface Paradise with the curbs there, and you get kind of three strikes, or you’re doing it every lap, you’ll get policed.”

He also explained that he was shocked by NASCAR’s penalty call on Elliott, which saw him finish 16th in the race. “I couldn’t really do much, but the one I couldn’t understand was Chase Elliott got one. He had a monster moment, it was an awesome save. He lost time, probably scared himself, lost time the next lap, taking it easy. It’s not advantage but he gets a thirty-second penalty, so that’s a bit harsh for me.”

While van Gisbergen is looking for more wiggle room or a system in place, former SHR driver Kevin Harvick believes all the road course races should be officiated for track limits.

Kevin Harvick wants NASCAR to take control of the road course races

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Compared to traditional ovals or superspeedways, the road course venues are different and cannot be guarded by railings or walls at every turn. This allows drivers to cut the track short and coming on the turns, the drivers are just trying to gain track position without racing on the actual racing surface. This is where Harvick feels that policing the entire race track will lead to better races going forward.

“From a road race racing standard, I believe that we need to race on the track. I think that COTA would actually race better if we had track limits. NASCAR’s point is, hey, we’re not to the point of being able to officiate it yet. They need to hurry up, we need to officiate every corner on the road course like it needs to be officiated, and I think track limits will make every road course a better race track,” Harvick said on the Happy Hour NASCAR show.

It is always a task to officiate a race weekend at COTA, but given the recent challenges, will NASCAR make any changes to the upcoming road course races?

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