First of all, Graham, I completely understand your feeling, but I can promise you, that I'm a kind of sportsman, who'd never enjoy a lap record with an unfair gained advantage or a victory with unfair behavior.
...it is easy to think that a lot of that time is lost by not pushing the limits of the track geography...
About me I can only honestly tell you, that my so far PB (1:12:5xx) was driven in a fair way. It only has the minor flaw, that I crossed the white line with all four wheels by
some inches at the exit of T1
but this was caused by hitting the inside curb, sending me into a slight. So this flaw caused more likely a time loss than a time gain! That's why I didn't cancel this lap, which I would have done, if I went wide knewing it gave me a time gain.
What I want to say is, that a high 1:12 is easiely possible with very clean driving!
...It is frustrating and lets face it if there is no time to be gained by it they would not do it...
Again I have to point out first, that I don't want to offend you or defend any kind of unfair driving, but I disagree with you on that.
As a racer it comes naturally to me, to use inside and outside curbs as long as the shape of the curbs allows it. Of course the inside curb of T1 doesn't allow much. It's an exciting part of racing on a race track and it feels good to master tricky chicanes by using the curbs and gambling with the car.
Here at Hockenheim and also at Interlagos we have some places where the curbs are flat and wide. So without noticing it from my cockpit view it can happen, that I accidentically leave the track only by naturally using the full curb. That's what I wanted to point out in this forum before this event, just to be sure if it's ok or not.
In general I have two priorities:
1.
In qualy I allways stay inside the lines! If I
noticed I crossed them with four wheels, I don't finish the lap.
2.
In the race I give myself more safety room not go wide too often. If it then happens by a driving mistake or missjudging the grip, because of tire wear, I don't feel guilty, because it causes a time loss.