F1 stewarding gets another overhaul

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Drivers going off-track is a typical area of dispute for stewards to rule on

Few things generate more heated debate on this site than decisions taken (or not taken) – by F1 race stewards.

In the last few seasons stewards’ decisions have often contradicted earlier decisions, and similar verdicts can take anything between minutes and hours to be taken.

The FIA at least seems to have recognised the system is broken and is now scrapping the role of permanent steward and bringing in experienced former drivers to improve stewarding at races. Will this finally lead to quicker and more consistent decisions?

Here’s how the FIA explains the changes:

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.

Goodbye (then hello?) to Alan Donnelly

Alan Donnelly was appointed to the role of non-voting chairman of the stewards at the beginning of 2008 and. This position is now being scrapped – but is it being done to get rid of the role or move Donnelly elsewhere?

Donnelly was a firm supporter of Max Mosley, who unhesitatingly promoted new FIA president Jean Todt as his successor. Today’s WMSC announcement also confirmed Todt’s pre-election plan of creating a Commissioner for the FIA’s different racing categories, including F1. Perhaps the man for the job will be not Mosley, but Donnelly?

Back to the matter at hand, it was under Donnelly’s direction that the stewards took some of the most hotly-contested decisions of recent years.

Not least of which was the decision to strip Lewis Hamilton of his win in the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix. Donnelly was at the heart of the controversy – he was the only one of the four stewards to ask Hamilton questions during his interview.

I’m cautiously optimistic that abolishing the non-voting Chairman role will be a change for the better. But there’s no denying F1 had its share of bad stewards’ calls before Donnelly’s time – such as the penalty given to Fernando Alonso in qualifying at Monza in 2006.

Drivers decide

Former F1 drivers will be invited to bring their experience to bear on decision-making.

In principle, this is a great idea and one that has been demanded for a long time. But its success depends on which drivers are chosen.

At the moment it isn’t clear who these might be but, as we’ve discussed here before, they will have to be carefully chosen to ensure they are sufficiently experienced and do not unduly favour one team over another.

An improvement?

It’s too early to say what kind of effect these changes will have, but come the end of next season we should have a good idea.

We’ve had similar promises of improvements in the past: last year we were told video of controversial moments would be shown on F1.com to help explain stewards’ decisions, but it never happened during 2009.

The latest changes seem to be along the right lines. But I’m not convinced they will make a significant difference unless the rules are updated to clear up common areas of dispute, such as drivers going off-track to gain an advantage, whether teams can communicate with race control following an incident, and what are the limits a driver can go to to defend their position.

Do you think the changes will improve stewarding in 2010? Have your say below.

Stewarding in F1

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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33 comments on “F1 stewarding gets another overhaul”

  1. Prisoner Monkeys
    11th December 2009, 21:20

    Sense!

  2. Looks like a step in the right direction. I mean, come on! They ought to be able to make a call on a pile up within 5 minutes. Look at the replay. Take input from former drivers (such as “he had to cross the line or he would wreck”..or “he totally took advantage there”) and make the call! Make the call and administer the punishment then get on with the race! imho…:)

  3. HounslowBusGarage
    11th December 2009, 21:41

    ‘Improve’ might not be the right word. I think they will become (or should become) more consistent, which is A Good Thing. It should put an end to some of the wierder vaguaries and inconsistencies race-to-race. At least teams might be able to predict the Stewards’ judgements with more certaintly in the future and act accordingly.
    I still think the ‘retired racing drivers’ should have full voting and executive rights on the Stewards Panel.

  4. Its a start to a new beginning of stewards. Maybe less cheating? we will see :)

  5. Mike "the bike" Schumacher
    11th December 2009, 22:52

    Good news, but there will always be people compalinig about decisions.

  6. Sounds good. But what if the former driver is one that has a reputation in their carer of cheating? Imagine Schumacker as a steward in Monaco watching a driver with the fastest Q3 time crash/park his car just to obstruct the lap time of his rival so he secures pole position (just as Shumi did in 2006) ? Would he declare a penalty? Would their past conscience obstruct their fairness? Sort of like Claudius watching a play of his brother’s murder.

    1. They do say ‘set a thief to catch a thief’
      But as HBG said we want consistency, with an explanation.

  7. Yes, the ex-driver stewards will have to be seen to be impartial.

    Apart from that, I think that it’s a step in the right direction.

    And write down all the rules so everyone knows them, and have fixed penalties.

    1. And write down all the rules so everyone knows them, and have fixed penalties.

      Couldn’t agree more.

      1. Difficult to disagree, but it’s much easier said than done.

        Take drivers going off track. How far off track do they have to go to earn a penalty? Should the whole car be off track and, if not, how much is acceptable and how is it defined and measured? How much do drivers have to back off to surrender any advantage gained? Should you punish drivers who unintentionally go off track, e.g. because of a loss of control? If not, how do you identify which is intentional and which isn’t? Are there any instances where it’s ok to go off track, e.g. to avoid a collision, or should all instances be punished without exception? Are all off track excursions equally bad that they should be punished equally?

        Clarity and transparency are good things in any set of rules. But there’s also room for good judgement and discretion by those charged with applying them. Tying the hands of the stewards could lead to just as many injustices as we’ve seen in the last couple of years.

  8. I hope the chnge works,& is praying that one of the driver be Sir Jackie Stewart.

  9. good choices:
    prost, stewart, mansell, berger

    bad choices:
    schumi, hakkinen, lauda-mouth

    ugly:
    piquet jun, piquet sen

    amusing:
    raikkonen

    good-or-bad-I-don’t-know:
    villneuve

  10. The decisions will probably be as good, or unbiased, as the people who are selected to sit.

    Obvious problems can result if the ex-driver is perceived to be partial to his former team in some key decision, and remember we have had championships decided of late by the smallest of margins. It would seem proper to require a driver to excuse himself from any decision involving his, or one of his, ex-teams. (…Caesar’s wife and all)

    I hope I’m the only one who sees this as a problem…standing just over there in the shadows.

  11. Bernard Ecclestone is also ex- Formula 1 driver, Will he be the one doing the job??

    BTW now fans will get someone else to criticize………

  12. Max Pitbull out of Stewarding Process:
    Good News

    Ex-F1 Drivers to join Steward Teams:
    Good News

    Allowing Stewards to use TV and Sound signal for doing their Job quickly (and accurately):
    Good News

    FIA doing some changes and hearing F1 Teams:
    Good News

    It seems to me Keith you are very cautious in your comments, looking at the “half-empty part of the glass”.

    It’s Christmas time, and we would be a little bit more optimistic.

    1. Well the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If we get through 2010 without some of the silly nonsense we’ve had in the last few years we can judge it a success.

      Part of my problem is they haven’t said “we’ve not done this right so we’re going to try this.” Instead they’ve said “this is how we’re going to change things.” So it’s not clear if they have identified exactly what’s wrong with the stewarding process, apart from the need to render decisions more ‘efficiently’ (to borrow their word).

      1. is it christmas pudding by any chance?

      2. Part of my problem is they haven’t said “we’ve not done this right so we’re going to try this.”

        I don’t think starting a war of telling what was wrong during Mosley era could be a wise movement from Jean Tod.

        I think keep his mouth quiet and starting to change things with no much noise is much clever.

  13. I agree that it all depends on what ex-drivers they choose. Say hypothetically, they chose Schumacher – well he’d just favour Ferrari, there’s no doubt about it. So that’s a difficult one.

    Obvious cases for a penalty should be given a verdict much quicker than is happening now – I could never understand the huge delay in meting out certain penalties during a race that are obvious to all other observers.

    And I can guarantee that if Lewis Hamilton is in any way fighting for the championship next year, there will be Spa 2008s and Japan 2008s all over again.

    Some people keep saying “forget the Spa penalty”, but it had such a huge impact on recognising unfairness and a ridiculous stewarding system in F1, that it can NEVER be forgotten. Especially as it could have had such a huge impact on deciding the 2008 title as well.

    Whatever happens, please get rid of Surinder Thatti having anything to do with F1.

  14. Small improvement, in my opinion.
    The very best improvement would be to write down some rules and the very very best improvements would be…to avoid stewarding at all. Do we really need any phase of the race to be analyzed and followed by drive through or any kind of punishment? In my opinion the role of stewards should be less influent on the races.

  15. Good news. It still hurts, the way the stewards destoyed the 2003 world championship. Do you remember at indy, the penalized monty, for a racing incident. Shame on them.

  16. The drivers chosen for this need to have had recent F1 experience. The main reason for having divers as part of this process is that they know what it’s like to drive modern F1 cars on modern circuits. Much as I admire the likes of Stewart, Lauda, and Prost, none has started a Grand Prix for nearly two decades.

    You also need someone who’s articulate and intelligent enough to see the wider consequences of stewarding decisions – what’s Anthony Davidson doing in 2010?

    1. Anthony Davidson would be dreadful. His views expressed on the BBC are often stupid.

    2. Will he still be employed by brawn/mercedes in 2010? In which case he cant possibly chosen can he? Same goes with Schumi for me, they cant ask him to be a steward if he is employed by Ferrari if they want unbiased desicions.

      I agree with your time out of the cockpit statement though so i thought maybe DC would be a good choice but he is still with Red Bull isnt he? Struggling to think of too many recent drivers to be hounest. Rubio after he has retired has to be a good one.

      1. I agree that drivers still employed the way DC is should be ineligible for the role…

        OR

        perhaps of a panel of say 5 drivers, only 2 give their input on any one incident. Gives them some capacity to avoid bias from a particular ex-driver if the incident affects a team they have a current or past association with

  17. Although I applaud the fact that ex-drivers are involved in the decision making I don’t believe that will bring about any more clarity to the stewarding decisions. The main cause of upset and debate on this site is always regarding consistancy and transparency, and we will only get this through validation and clear rules. There is still too much that is open to interpretation and application of the rules. We simply need a better rule book in clearer language which will make their application simpler.
    Much of the decisions are debated when a precedent has been set, and previous transgressions have been unpunished and then similar actions later apparently punished disproportionatley. F1 needs a new set of rules, with clear consequences for those that break them. This way there would be no precedents and the new rules could be followed to the letter.
    If Donnelly is gone, the that is good news………but you know what they say about bad pennies turning up!!!

  18. One decision or another, there’s always people claiming about it. For me, just counts if the decision is fair or unfair.

  19. Hopefully this will just be a first step in improving stewarding and making the rules clearer.

    I have always thought the role of the non-voting chairman of the stewards seemed a bit odd, Donnelly seemed to ask the questions and direct the stewards but didn’t vote himself.

    Regardless of if you thought Hamilton should have been punished at Spa 2008, I think one of the worst aspects was the appeal, the FIA said that type of punishment could not be appealed but only after everyone turned up and presented their cases at the appeal.

    Hamilton and McLaren lying in Australia this year showed up some problems with the stewards, such as the fact they just took Hamilton’s word over Trulli’s and didn’t check the team radios that were supposed to be available to them before punishing Trulli. Also the fact that it seemed no minutes or recordings are taken of stewards meetings and interviews with teams and drivers, or even a signed statement from the drivers.

    Things that I would like to see would be more consistency, someone please correct me if my memory is faulty, but after Webber was investigated and punished during the German Gran Prix for an incident on the first lap, at the next Grand Prix in Hungary the stewards decided not to investigate an incident Raikkonen had on the first lap until after the race.

    Whether the incidents themselves deserved any penalties are matters of judgement, I remember at the time thinking that neither driver should get punished, but it would have been nice if we could have received an explanation why the change in when to investigate a first lap incident.

    But before Hamilton received a penalty for a first lap incident in Japan 2008 I can’t remember such a thing being punished before yet no reason was given why the change in policy.

    Another thing I would like to see change is teams being able to talk to race control during the Grand Prix to check things such as should a driver give a position back.

  20. I think this is nothing but an empty promise, until we see something concrete come of this during grands prix, it is nothing short of window dressing. The one thing no one can account for, however, is that you are never going to have an official who is completely unbiased.
    We see this is football, and other forms of motorsports, i.e Montoya’s Indy penalty in NASCAR is a good example.
    The real problem for me, and many others, is the length of time it takes F1 officials to make a decision to penalise a driver. The events of Spa 2008 were the classic example of F1 making a complete hash of itself infront of the world’s media. As with Indy 2005, the sport found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons.
    Never, ever again, should an F1 race be decided ‘HOURS’ after the event has finished and the fans have gone home. This is not an Iranian election, it is the world pinacle of motorsports!

  21. A, “smaller permanent group of stewards.” This sounds logical. I was led to believe, though, that the former F1 drivers putting in their input would not be permanent. I understand that it may be difficult to employ a permanent group of former F1 drivers to sit on the stewards board, but these guys will be like a “guest” advisor in other words? OK, lets say that Piquet Sr. is a guest advisor? hahaha There is probably more than one former driver that has an ax to grind! Just having fun. This does seem like a step in the right direction.

  22. Step in the right direction, but I agree with Keith, we need better clarification of rules (currently, cutting a chicane at the Bus Stop is frowned upon, but taking a faster line through La Source isn’t, even though it breaks the same rule)

  23. I think this is great news.. and having clear precise rules that everyone can follow is another great suggestion.. using former F1 drivers is a great idea and keeping one set of stewards is something that needed to happen.. how can you possibly have continuity in the decisions when you always have different people making the decisions?

    I can’t imagine there being a problem with a drivers being bias towards an ex team in a decision because you couldn’t hide behind anything… any decision you make would be public knowledge.. if they do make the decision process transparent it would be impossible to get up to any shinaginans.. should be a step in teh right direction..

  24. I think it would be more useful if the Stewards had better training, which I see is mentioned by the FIA, and if all the unwritten rules were written down and agreed on (as manatcna points out), otherwise no matter which Stewards are present, which ex-drivers are present, and who is the Chairman, there will still not be an consistancy between races and incidents.
    Also, much more should be made of the replays and telementary information in the decision making, and above all it should be a fast decision, an instant on-track penalty and get on with the racing…..
    And remembering the last few years, it might help if the Stewards paid attention when the teams make a decision too (like handing back places taken in error). I often have the feeling that the Stewards never actually watch the race, and don’t talk to the teams unless they really need to….

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