In a change this year, ITM 400 race officials introduced sensors to replace the tyre bundles that cars used to hit with spectacular regularity.
The sensors determine whether a car has short-cut the course.
However, after there were plenty of short-cut offences in the first practice session yesterday, one tyre bundle was put back and later one of the sensors was turned off.
New Zealander Fabian Coulthard acknowledged that the change to sensors was made with good intentions because the tyre bundles had resulted in unnecessary damage to cars in previous years.
But he described the situation at the start of practice yesterday as "horrendous".
"You didn't really know if you had offended or not," he said.
"There's no visual or structural thing you could see or feel and say, oh, there you go. All you did was get told by the guys that you've short cut the chicane."
Coulthard said putting one of the tyre bundles back had improved the situation but it still wasn't ideal.
"They've now switched off the sensor through the right part of the chicane and going by the number of offences in the last session, I think they have definitely improved it," he said.
"But visually, it's still quite difficult because you don't have an apex point on each part of the chicane as a gauge."
Sensors were also used at the Clipsal 500 on the Adeliade street circuit last month, but Coulthard said drivers were given more leeway.
"At the Clipsal, they have the same system at the turn-one chicane, but so long as your left side is on the track, it's fine," Coulthard said.
"This is totally different. There's no margin for error for us to step over the back of the curb."
Drivers face a three-strikes policy if they short-cut the course, with a third infraction resulting in a drive-through penalty.
Australian Craig Lowndes, who was fastest in practice, is one driver who has damaged his car in Hamilton in the past when hitting a tyre bundle.
But he also expressed frustration at the layout of the chicane yesterday because there was so little margin for error.
"It's frustrating because you don't know how much or how little you can cut," he said.
"At least when the tyre bundles was there, you knew if you hit them, you smack them and then you get going."
Lowndes said it was something that still needed "a bit of massaging".
"It's obviously better for the car when there's no tyre bundles there," he said.
"But at the same time we need to know where that fine line is."
