Concerns over early-season precedents of penalty distributions after just two races could lead to multiple grid drop sanctions this Formula E season in what several drivers and teams have described as overly harsh penalties.
One of the main bones of contention from the Diriyah openers last month came after a reprimand was handed out to Jean-Eric Vergne for his part in contact with Nyck de Vries while battling for fourth position.
De Vries locked up under braking for the Turn 18 and 19 complex with Vergne then able to draw alongside for the left-hand apex. De Vries attempted to re-claim the line when contact was made.
The DS Techeetah driver made it through to take the position, while de Vries lost momentum and dropped down to the lower reaches of the top 10.
The incident was placed under investigation and Vergne was given an official reprimand for the altercation, although this was initially wrongly attributed to contact with Robin Frijns’ Envision Audi and later reissued.
Most observers felt that the contact was a racing incident, but the stewards disagreed and dished out the penalty to Vergne, who said he was “confused” by the decision.
“He outbraked himself, he was in the dirt and the marbles and I was just on the outside in front of him,” added Vergne.
“I don’t know why I should get a reprimand for that. I am confused.
“I don’t understand it, and they give it to me without talking to me, and yesterday in quali, I got impeded and the driver [Robin Frijns] had nothing. Where is the consistency here?”
Vergne’s sporting manager James Rossiter has subsequently told The Race that he feels such judgements constituted a “fairly aggressive sanction by the FIA for the move that occurred” and in his “professional opinion it was a racing incident”.
“At no point was JEV the aggressor in that situation,” added Rossiter.
“If you watch the video, in slow motion, you’d actually say that car 17 (de Vries) was off the racing line and turned back onto the racing line and hit JEV before T19.
“So, I think this was not necessarily the correct decision.
“I think the topic of consistency and application of rules is a very touchy subject at the moment, as that really has set a precedent that if that’s what a reprimand stands for, and a driver gets three reprimands before they get a 10-place grid penalty, then I think that we could see some fairly big impacts from these reprimands if they’re being handed out for these sorts of racing incidents.”
The opinions come after The Race revealed last month that a rethink on trying to achieve more consistent penalties was being pursued by the FIA.
The FIA’s Formula E and innovative sport projects director Frederic Bertrand said that “the difficulty we always have is that when we start to be stricter on something where we were not so strict before, people complain about consistency.
“So, we just want to see from the beginning, that we are consistent in the way that we will sanction those behaviours.”
The FIA uses a driver advisor to work with the three stewards (chairman of the panel, international and national stewards) at Formula E races.
Formula E has a regular group of drivers working at races, although only one, Vitantonio Liuzzi (pictured below driving for the short-lived Trulli GP squad in the championship’s inaugural season), has any experience in the series.
Other drivers have recently included Paul Belmondo, Andy Soucek and Enrique Bernoldi.
Speaking at the pre-season test in Valencia last November during a tour of FIA departments, the permanent international steward, Achim Stroth, touched on the subject of speaking to drivers after incidents, “if we have a feeling that we have to hear the involved parties we summon them.
“We can talk directly to the drivers to all parties involved, some kind of finalities are then written but we have to do a hearing before we penalise them,” added Stroth.
“After all, when we are completely sure that we have all the evidence, then we take a decision. We always try to make decisions as fast as possible, but the priority is to make the right decision.”
The driver who Vergne was adjudged to have caused the collision with in Diriyah, de Vries had a more philosophical outlook to the stewards work, telling The Race that his opinion on the incident was “not really valid. I’m not objective.”
“For the organisation and the stewards, it’s extremely tough to judge every individual case separately.
“Unfortunately, the way the cars are designed, the way the tracks are, the low grip and the robustness of the cars is kind of inviting the drivers to race in such a way and it requires very strong policing from the stewards and organisation to keep that under control.
“I also feel for them because it’s tough and from a driver perspective, you’re obviously trying to think of your own interest and trying to make up positions and to go forward.
“It’s a difficult balance I don’t have an answer to.”
In addition to the Vergne and de Vries incident, Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland felt his penalty was both harsh and handled dismissively, as like Vergne he was not granted an audience with the stewards.
Rowland was involved in a tardy incident with Frijns which saw multiple contacts before Frijns admitted that he “fired him off” into the barriers at Turn 16 in the last act of the on-going incident.
“There’s just no consistency in the way they (the stewards) approach things,” Rowland told The Race.
“They want to let us race but then they also now want to be extreme in the fact that they give us penalties for trying to race.
“They just need to be a little bit more down the middle instead of just extreme like one way or another.
“There have been times where we can get away with whatever we want and now it seems like we’re in this way if you can’t get away with anything.
“To be honest, they’ve stopped even speaking to us as much, so they make a decision without us even being present, which is also a little bit frustrating when you can at least try and fight your corner as well.”
