Poll Let...them....RACE

Would you prefer to see stewards less involved in the outcome of races?

  • YES

    Votes: 18 38.3%
  • NO

    Votes: 29 61.7%

  • Total voters
    47

EvilWhippet

Podium Finisher
Simple idea, I'm just looking for a show of hands to figure out if I'm the only one who wished a result could just stand and positions be sorted out on track.

Felt like asking because I'm a British Mclaren fan but Vettel clearly beat Button to second on track in an F1 car today and gets it taken away from him off the track by people in a room. However that's an argument for another thread...
 
I would prefer it if there was more correspondence between the FIA with the teams when it comes to sorting out the incidents such a the one today. However someone's stewards have to get involved, although I think that some incidents can just be left as 'racing incidents'.
 
That depends on drivers adhering to the rules, or tracks that punish transgressions without the stewards having to get involved (gravel traps, anyone?). While we have such scope for drivers to wave two fingers at the rule book unfortunately we need stewards to make sure that illegal manoeuvres aren't profitable.
 
True, they're necessary sometimes but if I'm not mistaken there hasn't been a race so far this year that hasn't been affected by penalties. That's way too much. Especially in cases like today when Seb was clearly going to finish second anyway. It's not as if Button was in his mirrors until the very end.
 
I'm going with Pyropes view, if the drivers were punished for going off course then we wouldn't have to refer to the stewards. Back in the old days of F1 no driver would dream of forcing another guy off track as there would be a good chance that one of them wouldn't be going home that day.

Obviously we can't go back to the days where people are at risk but the drivers need to keep within the limits of the track or pay the penalties. As for the stewards they have a tough job where they are damned if they do or damned if they don't but I feel they shouldn't have to be put in those positions in the 1st place!

BRING BACK GRAVEL TRAPS! (or similar slowing down methods like those at Paul Ricard)
 
True, they're necessary sometimes but if I'm not mistaken there hasn't been a race so far this year that hasn't been affected by penalties. That's way too much. Especially in cases like today when Seb was clearly going to finish second anyway. It's not as if Button was in his mirrors until the very end.

Quite, but that says much more about the drivers than it does about the stewards. There was plenty of potential for Seb to pass Jenson properly and within the rules. He decided not to so on his own head be it.
 
I could have said yes to this but the trouble is when Vettel passed Button Vettel was not racing on the track he was racing off of it and yes he was clearly going to pass Button at some point which makes it even more ridiculous because he could have left it for one more lap and done it legally, no sorry I've got no sympathy for him sometimes a racing driver has to use his brain and not just his skill....

It is when drivers don't use their brains that we need stewards to point this fact out to them....
 
The very idea of a free-for-all, a sport without rules, leaves me extremely cold. In my opinion, if a competitor in a sport gains an advantage by cheating then they should be punished for it. I'd rather see the results decided on track, but only because there aren't drivers cheating.
 
I voted No

The reason been they should be rules in place to prevent drivers cheating. But i wish that the Stewards were more consistant when coming to decisions. At times i'm sick of one rule for another and one rule for the other.
 
I voted no because overall the stewardship has much improved and on balance the decision making process is, I feel, getting better. The only contentious decision this weekend was perhaps with regard to the alleged technical infringement vis a vis engine mapping and that has more to do with interpretation of the rules and how they are written. Expect clarification to come from the working group meeting tomorrow and perusal of the outcome of that by FIA technical delegates and their legal advisors.

The Seb overtake was a no brainer and the precedent has been well and truly set since at least 2008. The application of the rule and the penalty should have come as no surprise to anyone.
 
I went marginally for yes in the end. However, I think Vettel probably deserved a penalty today, he clearly floored it well before when he should have been in order to take the corner normally. Having said that, although I know Vettel's penalty was the only one available according to the rules, it would have been much more sensible to just demote him to 3rd.

In summary, I voted yes (just) because...
  • A few too many penalties for "racing incidents".
  • Too many penalties relating to mechanical faults (gearbox changes etc.). It would be nice if there was a different way to encourage reliability for cost saving.
  • Penalties often take too long to be applied.
  • Post-race penalties, in particular, can be too harsh.
Overall, I think the stewards are doing a pretty good job though. F1 is a completely different kettle of fish to something like Tennis where (with the aid of Hawk eye) there can be no doubt whether a ball is in or out.
 
The Vettel penalty was a pretty easy one to rule on. He took all four tires outside of the white line to complete the pass, which is illegal. Many people have brought up the Hamilton-Rosberg situation in Bahrain, but what makes this current situation different is that Rosberg forced (very aggressively) Hamilton off the track. Hamilton had no choice. In today's race, Button left plenty of room and did not force or come over on Vettel. Vettel moved offline on his own to gain an advantage. The stewards got this one right...
 
I voted No, Greenlantern101 sums it up nicely.
Having said that I sometimes wish they had the ability to temper the punishment to the crime, for instance both Seb & Pastor received 20s post-race penalties (different races). For Seb it was a big drop in points despite his opponent safely finishing the race, for Pastor it made almost no difference to his final outcome but his opponent paid a much heftier price. Unfortunately things are never going to be 'fair' but some drivers/teams do get away with far more leeway than others.
 
No.
But I agree with Dizzi; I wish they would use the device of switching positions, as they do in Indy racing I think. As with Hamilton/Raikkonen at Spa 2008 the Vettel/Button incident would have been better sorted out by simply switching the positions of the two cars involved. Maldonado (at Valencia) was in reality less severely punished than Vettel for a much more serious offence (having said that, if Vettel had only given the place back himself as he clearly ought to have done, he would still have third place rather than fifth).
 
I voted yes.But this is simply that I believe that F1 all aspects of overegulated to ridiculous levels.This is from the the actual fake racing to the technigal regulations which actively discriminates against any technical engineering innovation.
Aerodynamics are not in my opinion innovation.
The latest inteference by the FIA on Renaults engine mapping system being a case in point.
Back in 1964 I owned a MG Magnette which had a manual lever which advanced or retarted the ignition that I could operate at will.
By retarding the ignition at any given set of a engine revs I was simply able to manipulate the degree of torgue to suit my purpose.
I also had a mixture control lever which I could also richen or lean the mixture to suit myself.
Yet here in 2012 we still have F1 cars running archiac engines with a set of ludicrous regulations and then calling itself the "pinnacle of motorsport".
Very simply the cars should keep all four wheels on the track during the race.The technology already exists to punish the cars tyres if the they run over the kerbs or off of the track and the same technology came also make the the sport much safer than it is at present.
 
Dizzi - Why swap positions though? Vettel had plenty of time to do that himself and then retake. He gained an advantage and decided to forget the rulebook, therefore he deserved a harsher penalty so as not to do it again, otherwise he will never learn and keep making these kinds of moves.

I personally thought that anyone who went off the track yesterday to gain an advantage more than three times should have been punished by a drive-through, a bit like Hamilton was for cutting a chicane a few years ago.
 
I personally thought that anyone who went off the track yesterday to gain an advantage more than three times should have been punished by a drive-through, a bit like Hamilton was for cutting a chicane a few years ago.
Vettel was effectively punished by a 'Drive-through' yesterday, albeit a post-race one, since that is what the 20 or 25 second penalty is supposed to replicate when an incident happens near the end of the race.

In the BTCC they have begun to use this 'three warnings then a drive-through' system on an increasingly regular basis for cars going outside the limits of the circuit (whether overtaking or not). It seems to work quite well, but does need a lot of monitoring in order for it to be fairly and equally applied.
 
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