There's no way he should have been given a penalty in the context of current F1 and how penalties are handed out. It would have been an inconsistency.
However, it is also unacceptable to me that this sort of thing happens. Obviously he gained an advantage. He didn't gain an advantage relative to taking the corner the normal way, but he gained time relative to the mistake he made. For example, if it wasn't a chicane and he'd just gone wide round a corner, he would have lost more time. Also, if he'd made a real effort to go round the chicane on a poor line he would have lost more time. Or if he'd missed the chicane, reversed and done the corner properly, he'd have lost more time. So yes, he gained an advantage.
But what do we do about such things? I don't like the idea of penalties because it's really just a mistake (as opposed to "cheating") and the track should sort it out. So there's the gravel argument, and there's also the argument that cuttable chicanes should be eliminated wherever possible. I don't think all these chicanes in F1 are necessary. They only need to exist to slow cars down in the run up to a corner that otherwise wouldn't have a big enough run-off to be safe. And they can be redesigned to make them less likely to be cut.
Another solution is to have a penalty lane somewhere round the track - like a mini pitlane, but where drivers go wide of the actual circuit through this lane and it costs them a few seconds, but less than a drive-through. Going through this would be an automatic consequence of cutting a chicane - no adjudication should be necessary. It could even just be seen as another route round the track. You can either drive the "normal" line, or cut the chicane and go through the penalty lane - the latter would always be designed to take longer. Although having said that, it would be very unsatisfactory if, say, Hamilton had passed Alonso by cutting the chicane and then stayed ahead through the penalty lane because he's stretched out enough of a gap. So the penalty lane would ideally be very near to the chicane and also enough of a detour to make sure it never paid to cut the chicane.
Edited by PlatenGlass, 27 July 2014 - 22:43.