Problem is that ”unnecessarily slow” is subjective. Minimum sector times are not.
I think you can imagine this sort of like a reversal of the pit speed limiter. Imagine if we had a rule that didn’t state that the driver must drive through the pit lane below a set speed - instead it would just state that no driver should drive ”unnecessarily fast” through the pits. Where would you draw the line? Not so easy after all, there are always going to be grey areas, and once you’ve accepted that a guy running through the pits slightly higher than the current speed limit without any problems then the precedent gets pushed further and further.
Yes, I can see that point of view. But I don't think it is as simple as comparing it to driving through the pits. In fact it can be argued that speed limits encourage people to drive faster than they would do without them as there is a belief that if it says you can do 50 mph, you can ALWAYS do 50 mph. If you say you must drive safely at all times (it can be worded better but you get the idea) then you might decide to driver at 30mph because it's been raining for example. But then again these are racing drivers, not your average commuter, and their job is to drive as fast as they can with safety being a secondary thought so perhaps we shouldn't apply the same logic to their decisions as we should for road users.
My concern is that the rule seems very knee-jerk and ill-thought out. Several posters have already found holes in it that could be used to exploit an advantage or to ruin a quali lap of a competitor. Then when that happens we'll need another rule and another and another, when all along we've had rules for dangerous driving that could have sorted everything out if it was used correctly.
However, there will always be a danger of a high speed collision with how qualifying is now, and I do agree with Jazza here that we have waved yellows or SC when a car is stationary near the track but nothing when a car is nearly stationary ON the track. It is ridiculous and it does need fixing, my only issue is with this new rules rather than looking to wholesale change qualifying for next year because even with a minimum time you will STILL get cars crawling through corners to make a space or to protect their tyres and whilst Monza was an outlier every weekend you see cars flying past another one with a speed differential of over 100mph and if what someone posted earlier is correct, that F1 cars are only crash tested at 51kmh(?) then that still nearly 3 times the safety rating.
I don't see that this rule will fix anything and I can see it being used strategically to compromise another driver. I would much rather than change qualifying to a single lap shoot out with only 1 car on track at any one time, perhaps with the same Q1-3 knockout like we have now. It might 'ruin' the spectacle for some, but for me it would be immense to see the drivers really under pressure to deliver straight off the bat with only one chance, and it would improve safety immeasurably. Plus qualy would be longer giving me even more of F1