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Formula 1 heads into this weekend’s French Grand Prix with relations between drivers and the officials at a particular low.
Tensions over how rules on close racing were interpreted at the British GP a week earlier prompted more calls from drivers for greater consistency and a single race director – the role now alternating between Eduardo Freitas or Niels Wittich since Michael Masi’s exit – and the situation escalated to the point Sebastian Vettel walked out of the drivers’ briefing and was then publicly chastened for it.
Are the drivers’ complaints fair? What needs to be improved? What should happen next?
Here are our writers’ thoughts:
F1 needs professional stewards now
Edd Straw
While other topline international sports have long since introduced full-time professional referees, the FIA and F1 have rigidly stuck to a more old-school way of stewarding. That needs to change.
Appointing a permanent panel of full-time, professional stewards would improve the consistency not just of decisions, but also of the dialogue between the drivers and those issuing penalties.
By making these permanent roles, the stewards will not only build a comprehensive knowledge of F1 ‘case law’ but can also play an active role in framing regulations and even working with other FIA championships to improve consistency.
It stands to reason that by having well-selected, full-time stewards the system will be improved. Yes, the regulations will still need work and it’s no panacea and there’s plenty more to be done, but it would bring F1 into the 21st century.
The spirit of amateurism existed in topline sport for a long time, and within that many stewards do take a very professional attitude towards their responsibility.
It’s time for F1 to catch up with the rest of the world, even though it would be naive to imagine stewards and drivers will ever see entirely eye to eye.
Drivers need to police themselves better
Gary Anderson
F1 shouldn’t have to rely so heavily on the stewards. Take track limits for an example, the teams and drivers must take more responsibility.
The drivers have complained endlessly about track limits and in Austria we saw Sergio Perez being given a late penalty from Q2. There’s no question he went beyond the white line so he has no one else to blame.
So put the onus on the teams and drivers. Make it their responsibility to monitor their own track limits and take the appropriate action.
If the team doesn’t take action then the stewards get involved and a driver can be penalised. But then there can be no complaints, it’s about the teams monitoring it rather than seeing what they can get away with.
The rule is simple enough. The white line marks the track limits and these drivers are good enough to stay within it – and if required leave a bit of margin.
Making Vettel an example was counterproductive
Scott Mitchell
Clearly, there are flaws on the FIA’s side. Some officials have a lot of experience, on-track or off it, and could clearly contribute to a high-level set of stewards.
But no other professional sport has this kind of rotating cast of unpaid (and therefore amateur by definition) referees.
F1 drivers are clearly fed up with this. But I suspect the representatives of the FIA are also fed up of being called out or having their supposed incompetence highlighted. There is great tension between these two groups – a tension that has clearly reached a point where the FIA wanted to send a message.
That’s the only explanation I can think of for the stewards treating Vettel’s drivers’ briefing walk-out in Austria the way they did. It’s not constructive to have called Vettel out in public and then, in their decision, chastising him so aggressively.
Especially when the punchiest dig at Vettel was made about him not being a good enough role model – a ludicrous accusation to levy at the four-time world champion, especially for walking out on a drivers’ briefing that was private and that we didn’t know anything about until the stewards summoned him!
It smacked of a set of officials wanting to put a driver in his place. This is escalating from two opposing viewpoints having disagreements into a clash of egos. And that’s not going to benefit anyone.
Don’t expect a perfect solution
Matt Beer
As my colleague Edd Straw argued last week, it might be that what the drivers hope for is implausible.
They’re not wrong to be frustrated. It’s not just that decisions last year and this have been questionable, it’s the attitudes around decisions that have rightly caused ire – the radio broadcasts revealed a little too much about Michael Masi’s approach to drivers and teams last year, and there’s been too much of a ‘make an example of…’ stance this year. The officials needs to be the grown-ups here.
But even if the stewards were permanent, professional, beyond reproach in their dealings, and working from clear, mutually agreed and up to date rules, there will still be flashpoints and discord.
It’s competitive sport and no matter how the rules are worded, how many camera angles and data points are available, there will be areas of subjectivity in the judgement of racing incidents. Not all racing incidents – there will be crazy punts from miles ahead or gratuitous weaving at times. Maybe then it’s the degree of a punishment and the struggle to get precise consistency in that which will cause the angst. Alongside that, there will be many incidents just packed with grey areas and differing interpretations.
There’s certainly plenty of room for improvement in F1 officiating right now. But even if those improvements are made, there’s always going to be a degree of officiating that comes down to a personal human decision – even within guidelines and with data and precedent to refer to – and disagreement will be inevitable there.
Drivers and stewards will never really get on – but problems could be minimised
Sam Smith
Racing drivers and racing stewards do not generally make a convivial mix on or off the track.
In fact, they might just be the worst combination of characters you can imagine. One (drivers) is compelled by an emotive composition and competitiveness, while the other is drawn to legality, rationale and detached decision-making. It’s absolutely no wonder the two don’t see eye-to-eye on so many occasions.
The introduction of driver advisors to act as a conduit between the participants and the drivers has been a sound idea over the last dozen years or so, but too often, and with all respect to those drivers, they lack specific relevance to what a modern day race driver is dealing with.
A classic example from the world of Formula E. It too has a dedicated ex or current professional racer to work with the stewards during an E-Prix. These have included Paul Belmondo, Enrique Bernoldi and Pedro Lamy. All were very good professional drivers, and in the latter case a highly decorated one in sportscars.
But none of them have any practical understanding of driving a Formula E car on the streets of Rome, New York, Riyadh, etc.
Put brutally, these drivers are out of touch with what is going on at the sharp end of professional racing and we also see it in Formula 1 to an extent too.
It’s not only on the track. Drivers are now finding an awareness of other strands to being a professional athlete in the 2020s. The old days of turning up, being a hero and going home are dwindling. Many, such as Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Lucas di Grassi specifically want to engage with societal, environmental, technological and mobility issues.
Why and how does this affect the dynamic of steward and driver?
Practically it doesn’t do much, but for the overarching and crucial basis of a healthy relationship surely it’s vital. You wouldn’t ask a 50-something business consultant to advise a millennial software entrepreneur, would you? Or a craggy and retired rock guitarist to curate a hipster dance-music festival?
The culture, relevance and understanding of a steward to all aspects of a championship, its drivers, its teams and its whole ethos should just be a basic prerequisite, and that should be viewed very much as a final decision.
That could mean the FIA investing in a dedicated programme of former drivers, possibly ex-team members and what about the media too, to look at an alternative career in transitioning their skills, passion and experience for a new way of stewarding events to supplement the legal skills also needed to impose regulations.
