It was a costly outburst but maybe Russell Ingall’s “peanuts” claim towards V8 Supercars officials has delivered results.

The veteran driver used the term to describe officials after being given a drive-through penalty during last month’s event at Winton, claiming fans would “kick the s… out” of them over their decision.

The comments resulted in a $15,000 fine but on Friday the V8 Supercars commission confirmed a review of the penalty system had resulted in changes.

Under the old system officials had a set table of penalties for any offence but now consideration can be given to the consequences of the breach in determining any penalty.

It means Ingall may not have been given an automatic drive-through penalty for his indiscretion at Winton, allowing him to continue to race before facing something like a points sanction post-race.

V8 Supercars motorsport general manager Damien White said the new recommended range of penalties give driving standards observer Jason Bargwanna and stewards more flexibility with their penalties.

“Our stewards do a brilliant job – they are asked to make decisions within the confines which we set and should not be exposed to undue or unfair criticism for working within the parameters they are given,” White said.

“The first outcome of the review was the fact the penalties table was titled with the word ‘minimum’, which meant stewards had no flexibility to apply a lesser penalty for particular breaches.”

Another bone of contention with drivers has been automatic pit lane penalties for exceeding a 43km/h speed limit between fixed timing loops at the start of pit lane.

Bargwanna and his team are now able to investigate these breaches post-race though any speeding offences in pit lane registered on radar guns above 40km/h will still carry an automatic pit lane penalty.

“Safety is potentially compromised by speeding in pit lane, and most certainly is a performance advantage, no matter how small,” White said.

“That said, we don’t want the fan experience ruined, hence we have introduced the provision for a post-race review on speeding breaches at pit entry that sit at the lower end.”

The new penalty system comes into effect at the next V8s round in Perth on May 16-18.