F1 Rules and Stewarding Standard Needs Addressing
Chaotic weekend in Saudi Arabia was off-putting more than exciting.
Last week’s penultimate Grand Prix of the season in Jeddah was a total mess. It was unsatisfying, confusing and sucked the air out of a thrilling championship battle.
There were many reasons for this. First and foremost, the circuit itself was a nightmare. Only finished within the last month, the new street track simply wasn’t up to standard.
Given the blank canvas that the designers had in creating the new venue, it was far too tight with next to no run-off areas. It put far too great an emphasis on straight line speed and yet it still managed to be too narrow to allow for many overtakes.
There was also the host for the venue. Saudi Arabia has a very well documented and very current troubling track record with human rights violations.
No host nation is perfect, but that there were key figures of the sport palling around Mohammed Bin Salman left a particularly sour taste.
That their anti-LGBTQ+ laws are totally at odds with the sport’s #WeRaceAsOne message doesn’t help the sport’s ability to speak out, when they allow such a key message to be undermined in the pursuit of cold, hard cash.
It also undermines those drivers, such as Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, who have been particularly outspoken about various issues over the last 18 months, but have no choice but to race in these countries.
Then there was the actual on-track action itself.
Predictably, there were incidents that led to numerous stoppages during the race. Mick Schumacher’s crash on lap 10 caused a four-lap Safety Car before a Red Flag was introduced.
Then there were multiple Virtual Safety Cars brought out for various bits of debris lying around the circuit, with another Red Flag needed after the first race restart.
And, most obviously, there were the antics between the two title protagonists Max Verstappen and Hamilton.
To understand the calamity that was caused when these two drivers went toe to toe, we need to go back to March 2019.
The unexpected and untimely passing of Charlie Whiting, former Race Director for Formula One, meant that Michael Masi suddenly had to take the reins as the sport’s referee.
The Australian was being primed to replace Whiting, but just like that he had to take over in such unfortunate circumstances during the first weekend of that season in Melbourne.
While Whiting was far from perfect, it became clear pretty quickly that Masi was not yet ready for the position and as a consequence he has done a lot of learning on the job. Considering the pedigree and importance of F1 as a motorsport series, this is not the standard required.
There were multiple controversial and race deciding decisions made that caused so much confusion about what the rules even were.
Vettel’s five-second penalty in Canada caused outrage, but was probably the correct decision by the rules.
However, such was the visceral reaction to the decision — which handed the victory to Hamilton — that there was a definite and unspoken easing of the rules in situations as delicate as determining the race victor.
This led to the incident between Verstappen and Charles Leclerc in Austria, whereby Leclerc believed he was unfairly pushed off the track by the Dutchman, who took the lead of the race from the Ferrari driver in the closing few laps.
It was then Leclerc who was on the other side of a controversial stewarding decision in Italy that year. The Monegasque received a black and white flag for a move in shutting the door on Hamilton in the late stages of that Grand Prix.
Leclerc cited Verstappen’s aggressive maneuvering in Austria as the inspiration for his own curt defence.
“Since Austria it’s clear we can go a bit further in the way we defend and overtake and just the aggressiveness of us drivers,” Leclerc said, via Autosport.
“I believe that Austria helped me change the approach and today it’s also thanks to this that I managed to win. It was obviously very on the limit, but I’m happy to race like this.”
This sudden and inconsistent shift in judging racing incidents — being way less strict on what was acceptable — brought us to the intense 2021 championship battle.
This failure to enforce the rules and keep the drivers in check has allowed everything to spiral.
Brazil was surely the last straw for this stance from the stewards. Verstappen’s incident with Hamilton not even being investigated was just simply confusing.
The overriding belief of most viewers was that the 24-year old was on the edge of acceptability, but to not even review it was just a baffling decision.
The Mercedes appeal of this decision the following week added to the pressure on the stewards to get more involved.
Because lately it has felt like Masi and the stewards are actively avoiding making decisions so as to not interfere in the championship’s destination, but that exact lack of interference is itself deciding the championship in its own way.
This all came to a head in Saudi Arabia. The incident that saw Hamilton drive into the back of Verstappen was the culmination of confusing and unclear decision making.
That Hamilton saw a slowing Verstappen and didn’t know whether to overtake him or not says so much about the lawlessness of F1 right now.
At any other time, Hamilton probably flies by assuming some kind of issue with the Red Bull but he instinctively knew something was afoot.
The likely jockeying for DRS position is such a silly problem with such a simple solution but nothing has been done about it by the FIA.
The line between whether a driver was unfairly pushed off the track or not also basically no longer exists. Nobody actually knows what is acceptable anymore.
The FIA and Masi need to take a hardline stance and regain some control because drivers are always naturally going to take advantage when they see a chance to.
The 2022 season, with the new regulations, offers everyone a chance to reset. This should be true of the FIA too.
The final weekend of this sensational 2021 season needs to be straightforward, some proactivity is needed to ensure this.
Masi absolutely should address the possibility of one driver trying to crash out the other to take the championship — it wouldn’t be the first time a season was decided by a driver doing that.
This incredible season can’t be ruined by such an anticlimactic and unrewarding ending. It’s all been so exciting up to now, it’s all set up so perfectly, that we all deserve a satisfying conclusion.
