“Formula 1 is one of the greatest sports in the world and we still have amateurs deciding the fate of people who have invested millions in their careers!” – Günther Steiner has had enough of the stewards after the penalty against Nico Hulkenberg at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Haas driver was given a 5-second penalty for touching Logan Seargant, which was later increased to 10 seconds because the team screwed it up during the pit stop. He had already paid the price himself with a puncture. However, the penalty is a thorn in the side of team manager Günther Steiner.
“I’m still trying to understand it,” replies the South Tyrolean when asked what the punishment was actually for. “Nobody can explain it to me. I’ve been emailing and studying pictures and honestly I can’t see any collision.” This is shown by the fact that he still does not know which corner the penalty was imposed for – corner 5 or 6.
“Nico comes from inside and is actually in front, dives into the corner … but I don’t see a collision,” he explains the incident at the Mirabeau corner. “I was told the collision was a touch. That’s the definition. I’m still trying to find an explanation. Because in my opinion, the decision was completely wrong.”
Alexander Albon is also surprised by the penalty: “I saw the overtaking maneuver and the collision. To be honest, I wouldn’t have given a penalty, that was okay for me. It was certainly optimistic, but he made it.”
Inconsistency not yet overcome
Formula 1 stewards have been criticized for years for inconsistent decisions. According to Steiner, none of the measures taken in recent years have worked. “We get a penalty for what I don’t even consider a collision. Other people hit each other during the race – they get the black and white one [Verwarnungs-]Flag.”
“Then we look at the accident in Miami between de Vries and Norris on the first lap, it wasn’t a collision. If you have a collision because you attack someone and they react… Why should you be penalized for that?”
“Because if you want to overtake someone, you obviously try to force them to make a mistake so that you can overtake. So that would also be illegal. For me the decision is incomprehensible. I was told that the video showed a collision I’ve looked at a lot of pictures, I don’t see any collision.
He also makes a suggestion on how he thinks things could go better: “We have to come back to this question: do we need a different system for the sports commissioners? Because in every professional sport there are professionals who are referees and so on. Formula 1 is one of the greatest sports in the world and we still have amateurs deciding the fate of people who have invested millions in their careers!”
“I don’t want to blame anyone here. It’s not even a job, because you can get fired from a job because you get paid. And if you do a bad job, you get fired. You can [hier] don’t get fired because you don’t get paid”.
Permanent employment as a solution?
So far, Formula 1 has rejected permanent commissioners on the grounds that the rotation prevents bias. “Why does that work for the race director and not for the steward? It’s the same,” Steiner replies.
It’s just about time to change that: “We have referees in football, they do it full-time, it’s a full-time job. Thirty years ago, the baker next door was the referee, that has changed.”
“We’ve been discussing this for years. And we keep coming back to it. There are professionals for it in every other sport. American motorsport, NASCAR, IndyCar: How often do you hear about problems with the stewards or with decisions by the race director? Very rarely. But they do it completely differently, people work there full-time.”
“I don’t think there’s any other sport where that keeps coming up because it’s not just about me or us, it’s about the fact that we haven’t found peace with this issue for years.”
Albon thinks the proposal is “not a bad idea. In general, I would take someone who has recently sat in a Formula 1 car who understands the cars and the tires. It’s very different from 20 years ago, let alone 30 or more 40 years.”
He suggests to Jolyon Palmer: “He analyzes accidents very well. I think he would be the perfect candidate. Someone like him would be a good choice.”