“The decision, for me, I still don’t understand it. I was told in the video you can see a collision. I looked at numerous pictures and I cannot see a collision.” Those were the words of Haas team principal Gunther Steiner who was enraged by a stewards decision against his driver Nico Hulkenberg during the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hulkenberg was handed a five-second time penalty after they deemed him responsible for a collision on the opening lap of the race. Furious at what he felt was an inconsistent penalty with no explanation, Steiner made his feelings clear to media including RaceFans last week.
“Lap one, we get a penalty for what I think is not a collision,” Steiner said. “F1 is one of the biggest sports in the world and we still have laymen deciding on the fate of people which invest millions in their careers.”
The stewards took umbrage over Steiner’s word “layman” and summoned him over the remarks. He was duly reprimanded for a breach of Article 12.2.1.k of the International Sporting Code, namely the “use of language which might reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offence, humiliation or to be inappropriate.”
Though perhaps the nature in which Steiner conveyed his message wasn’t quite the way to go about instigating change, the FIA should not ignore the valid points he also made.
Formula 1 events are overseen by a quartet of stewards which change regularly between rounds. One from a pool of chairpersons is present along with one ex-driver steward. Of the remaining two, one comes from the National Sporting Authority (ASN).
When decisions are criticised for lacking consistency, the ever-changing roster of stewards is often blamed. In 2021, the FIA used 41 different representatives over the season. In 2022 there were 36 different stewards being used across the 22 races, with no steward ever doing more than seven in a year. However the race-by-race change in national representative accounts for most of the variation.
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The stewards operate independently from the FIA despite being appointed by the organisation – a point which is often overlooked. They should be free of influence even when investigating the governing body’s own staff, as occured when FIA representatives responsible for the parc ferme area at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix were summoned over Esteban Ocon’s near-miss with a group of individuals who had been allowed into a live pit lane in the latter moments of the race.
You don’t have to look far to find others frustrated by inconsistent decision-making by the stewards. Last year Yuki Tsunoda stated that the FIA’s race direction and stewarding over the opening races had been “super inconsistent”. Mercedes’ George Russell, who heads the Grand Prix Drivers Association, said some things needed to be ‘ironed out’ with the stewards after the chaotic end to the Australian Grand Prix this year.
The decision which vexed Steiner was missing some key details, stating: “Hulkenberg caused a collision on the inside of turn six on the first lap.” Who and what he collided with was not specified, and where it might have happened was also open to question: He appeared to have made contact with Logan Sargeant, but that happened at turn five.
“The stewards considered that as he dived in and was unable to control the car and was not forced there by any other car this does not get the benefit of the doubt of a first-lap incident,” added the document, summarising the decisions of Monaco stewards Tim Mayer, Felix Holter, Danny Sullivan and Jean-François Calmes.
Three races earlier in Australia, Carlos Sainz Jnr was no less frustrated by his penalty, but got a more detailed explanation for it from stewards Nish Shetty, Loïc Bacquelaine, Enrique Bernoldi and Christopher McMahon.
“Car 14 [Fernando Alonso] was significantly ahead of car 55 [Sainz] at the first corner and nevertheless car 55 drove into car 14, causing it to spin and leave the track. We accordingly imposed a five-second penalty on car 55.
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“For avoidance of doubt, we took into account the fact that this collision took place at the first lap of the restart, when, by convention, the stewards would typically take a more lenient view of incidents.
“However, in this particular case, notwithstanding the fact that it was the equivalent of a first lap incident, we considered that there was sufficient gap for car 55 to take steps to avoid the collision and failed to do so.”
Nonetheless Sainz also had reason to question why others had been treated differently. At the same point in the race Logan Sargeant slammed into the back of the Alpha Tauri of Nyck De Vries, yet the stewards did not even investigate that incident. As Steiner pointed out last week, nor did the Miami Grand Prix stewards take action over De Vries driving into Lando Norris at the start of that race.
At its most extreme, some drivers have even accused stewards of taking against them. In 2017 Max Verstappen fumed at an “idiot” steward after he lost a podium finish in the United States Grand Prix when he was given a five-second time penalty for leaving the track while overtaking Kimi Raikkonen on the final lap.
“It’s just one idiot steward up there who makes the decisions against me,” said Verstappen after the race. This was interpreted by some as being a reference to FIA steward Garry Connelly, who had been part of the stewards panel in Mexico the year before when Verstappen received another penalty which cost him a podium finish. The late race director Charlie Whiting advised Verstappen to apologise for his outburst, which he did. Connelly, who is still a steward, later pointed out Verstappen’s corner-cut had actually been spotted by ex-F1 driver Mika Salo.
In the heat of the moment, drivers may not be inclined to own up to their mistakes and understand why they were penalised. Tensions between the competitors and referees are common to all sports. Steiner’s call for a permanent panel of stewards is not so radical, and others may well sympathise with his view, though if they choose to make that case publicly would do well to weigh their words carefully.
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