Russell and Leclerc on potential rule change: "Quite harsh"

Charles Leclerc and George Russell have spoken out about a possible rule change regarding track limits, and both drivers share the same opinion.

During Wednesday's press conference at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver and the Mercedes driver were both posed a question concerning exceeding track limits, with the penalty for multiple warnings potentially altering from five seconds to ten seconds in what would be a major rule change.

Last year at the Austrian Grand Prix, 12 penalties were handed out to drivers for track limit offences just for Sunday's race. With this suggested change, there's hope for a decrease in the amount of warnings and penalties handed out.

Why Russell and Leclerc are not keen on increasing time penalties

But Leclerc and Russell were not too keen on the idea posed to them, with Leclerc saying that "it sounds quite harsh."

"I think the main priority should be fixing or helping us at least respect those track limits better," said the Monegasque driver. "At the moment, with the way the white lines are, we don't see the track limit. I felt like five seconds was quite painful already, and 10 seconds is, in my opinion, too much."

Russell also agreed with his fellow championship rival: "I think it's difficult to comprehend from television how difficult it is from within the car. You're sat so low, and you can only see the top 15 centimetres of your tyres, and the cars are running 70 millimetres from the ground and even less at the end of a straight."

The British driver concluded by saying, "We need a curb that we can feel. Ultimately at some tracks we go to, there are no track limit issues whatsoever. It’s only a handful of circuits that we see a lot of track limit issues, so we just need to find a way to solve it."