The article says drivers must use only the track. Further articles mark the track as being the bit between the solid white lines.
Well, I remember last year on the Fuji race when Massa overtook someone almost touching the wall on the straight away. Someone raised the concern of whether it was legal to go beyond the white line, which he did in that occasion (unfortunately I couldn't find the video, but it was a breathtaking maneuver). So my guess is that the interpretation isn't so literal.
Not if no advantage is gained by doing so.
If in Monaco you cut the chicane of qualifying your lap is canceled no matter what. And during the race we all remember the warnings Massa got this year.
Indeed it isn't the case but, as you say, it should be. That's the point.
The rules are never applied with any consistency. Seemingly drivers are penalised or not on a whim - last year they even had to write a new rule (if you give an advantage back, you cannot then seek to regain it until after the next corner) and then retroactively apply it to the race! They even completely ignored several other offences against the Article - including but not limited to drivers using the runoff at Pouhon to open the curve and preserve speed - by every other driver in the race.
All we want is for all drivers to be covered by all rules all the time.
Fair enough, but that's more a complaint about FIA lack of clarity. That isn't necessarily saying FIA was unfair on Kimi's case. I'll explain in further details later.
SUPER NUMBBER
Your videos are worthless. No offence, but they don't "prove" your point. Why? Because I can just as easily find instances where a driver BLATANTLY cut a chicane and wasn't penalized (Schumacher-DeLaRosa @ Hungary '06 comes to mind) If we're to use past non-enforcements intead of the wording of the rules themselves, then cutting chicanes is also legal, blatantly so as shown in some instances.
Well, there is a difference. I can't remember what you've mentioned, but over the years drivers who cut chicanes have been consistently punished. If at one point it wasn't done, then it was an exception (which I can't discuss because as I said I don't remember any such incident). But I'll tell you why the videos are important:
Taking the example of our legal system, when judges have to sentence someone they'll not only look at the law, they'll look at case laws, in other words, similar cases that happened in the past and how they were handled (in other words, how the law was interpreted). So the question is: has any driver ever been penalized for cutting a chicane? Yes. Has any driver ever been penalized for using the run-off area? No. And the videos show that this has been done for years, by different drivers, in different tracks. In other words, if it has been done for years and never punished, why would we have to interpret it differently now?
Someone might argue that since the rules were changed, the previous arguments would be invalid. But the Rosberg video shows that even in 2009, after the rules were changed, drivers kept going beyond the track limits to take advantage and still have not been punished (there could be other drivers too, but I would have to watch the whole Australian GP weekend, which I'm not gonna do).
Therefore, based on those videos, it's safe to say the interpretation given so far in that case would make Kimi's move legal. Any punishment would be an arbitrary change in interpretation. Now whether the interpretation is ideal is another discussion. But we have to keep in mind that whatever interpretation is given, it has to be the same for all.
