FIA The FIA

[sportsman]

Keeping the same set of stewards for every race would undoubtedly improve consistency, but may not improve justice (e.g. you simply get stuck with a set who are consistently harsh, or consistently lenient). I'm not sure if that's an improvement, really.

At the end of the day common sense must play a part, and I think now more than ever, with ex-drivers on the panel, the stewards need to retain the ability to use their own judgement, rather than thinking that some sort of regulatory bible can be written that will cover every eventuality.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/wmsc/2009/Pages/wmsc_111209.aspx

FORMULA ONE

F1 Stewards

A smaller permanent group of F1 Stewards will sit with experienced former F1 drivers to provide a permanent panel of three FIA stewards, together with one steward representing the National Sporting Authority, to deal with F1 at each Grand Prix.

There will no longer be a non-voting Chairman and each group of stewards will elect their own Chairman amongst themselves for each race. Utilising video and radio exchanges they should aim to reach decisions very efficiently.

The current observer programme for F1 stewards will continue, and training, distribution of decisions, and an annual meeting will be encouraged to raise the quality of decisions in this permanent group.

 

[Fenderman]

I think the "group of five" idea has merit but not as the stewards of each race. It would be an interesting experiment to set this up as a review panel meeting at periodic intervals during each season. The panel could have the duty to review decisions of race stewards in order to identify inconsistencies and draft clarification notes and appropriate reports. They could then draw these to the attention of stewards in pre-race briefings in order to minimise inconsistency. As pointed out elsewhere, it is impossible for the stewards to be entirely objective but such a measure could enhance the improvements we have seen (to stewarding) still further.

As a footnote, I wonder if the applied penalty re, the Hamilton/Maldonado incident (since it did not affect Lewis's 6th place finish) may have been purposely set in such a way as to indicate action because the BBC's MB and DC had already planted the idea that LH was responsible for the collision on the viewing public but that they (stewards) may actually have disagreed with that view? I think the FIA stewards were actually rather clever in their thinking.

Edit. Thanks Sportsman for that clarification. I was a bit slow there. If the Observer programme includes a panel as mentioned above and don't do this already, perhaps they should be much more visible and incorporate the practise I have suggested?

 

[Andyoak]

The central issue, as I see it, is that the rules of the sport are interpreted subjectively by the teams (car design / team orders etc) and therefore the sport can only be governed subjectively by the stewards. However, the current system seems to be working OK when you consider what it is up against.

Like FB I suspect a fixed stewards panel is more open to accusations of bias but I'm not sure how to make an independent panel up from 'neutral' countries. It can work for cricket where you only have two teams playing against each other but F1 has at least half a dozen driver nationalities and for team nationalities on any one grid. The amount of 'neutral' countries / representatives with the appropriate experience is severely limited.

As for traffic light control of qualifying... I'm afraid I'm against this. A similar system has bee tried and it was as dull as ditch water. The teams all know where the other cars are at any one time and all have the ability to judge when best to send their driver out; I think this is an over-reaction to a popular driver and his team messing this up.

Personally, I think qualifying should be a free for all without knock-out stages (bring back the good-old-days). Likewise, I don't agree with blue flags for passing back-markers. Dealing with free-for-all qualifying and back-markers is all part of a drivers race craft and shouldn't be made unduly easy. To those who may refer back at some of the moving chicanes of the past; my arguement would be that it at least closed up the front runners through-out the length of the race and so kept the opertunities to race alive.

 

[Speshal]

Jason Plato for example would probably consider most collisions to be part and parcel of the race

 

[sportsman]

Reminds me a bit of "Hunt the shunt" What are you talking about."I thought F1 was a contact sport".

 

[KekeTheKing]

Safe to say that the drivers have lost all confidence in Charlie and his crew to properly legislate a motor race.

Not much news on that front then.

 

[Fenderman]

Reminds me of the "inconsistency" debate that occupied so many forum inches back in 2007/8. A driver can make a right roal screw up one week with no real penalty. A few weeks later a minor transgression puts a stack of points on the license. I wouldn't wish an unwarranted penalty on anyone but I seem to recall other drivers attracting the wrath of stewards in years past for not repecting yellows and waved yellows simply by improving a lap time, let alone thrashing a purple sector.

At least the inconsistency of Whiting and his stewards means that there are still very few precedents cast in stone in F1.