Guenther Steiner has been reprimanded by the FIA stewards for his spectacular call to overhaul Formula 1’s umpiring system, but debate over the way the sport is adjudicated continues rumbling along.
Steiner put himself into hot water at the weekend by slamming the decision to penalise his driver Nico Hülkenberg for a first-lap incident with Williams rookie Logan Sargeant at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hülkenberg dive-bombed Sargeant down the inside of Mirabeau and was slapped with a five-second penalty for being out of control of his car and causing a collision.
Watch the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix 2023 live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports on Monday, 19 June, at 4:00am AEST. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
But Steiner is adamant that there was no contact, and on-board footage from Sargeant’s car is inconclusive as to whether contact was made or whether Sargeant reflexively turned out of a potential crash.
The idea that his driver would be penalised based on what he believes is non-definitive proof rankled Steiner, and the clearly frustrated Haas boss used the opportunity to launch into a broader argument over the consistency of decision-making among the FIA’s rotating stewards panel.
“This has consequences. Lap 1 we get a penalty for what I think is not a collision, there are other people running into each other during the race and they get a black and white flag,” he said. “I think it’s very inconsistent.
“Then we look at the accident in Miami between (Nyck) De Vries and (Lando) Norris in lap 1 and that was [ruled] no collision,” he added, referring to De Vries rear-ending Norris on the first lap, for which the Dutchman was let off the hook.
Sargeant committed a similar error on De Vries at the Australian Grand Prix in an incident that wasn’t even investigated despite it costing the AlphaTauri driver a potential shot at the points in the chaotic final laps.
Steiner said it all amounted to evidence that the FIA needed to overhaul its stewarding system to professionalise it.
“Every professional sport has got professionals being referees and stuff like this,” he said. “F1 is one of the biggest sports in the world and we still have laymen deciding on the fate of people that invest millions in their careers.
“It’s always a discussion because there’s no consistency.
“It’s not even a job, because in a job you can get sacked because you get paid, and if you do a bad job, you get sacked.
“You cannot get sacked, because you do not get paid. I think we need to step it up.
“We have got a lot of issues with this. We need to recognise this. And Formula 1 is one of the biggest if not the biggest sport in the world now, and I think we need to step it up. That’s my opinion about it.”
Steiner pointed out that most other sports, including many other motorsport categories, have full-time stewards to ensure consistent and reliable decisions.
“Every other sport has professional referees. American racing, NASCAR, IndyCar — how many times do you hear problems with the stewards or with the race director’s decisions? Very rarely.
“But they are doing it completely differently, there are full-time people working there.
“We have got a referee in football, they’re full-time, it’s what they do, it’s a full-time job. Thirty years ago we had the local bakery guy being referee, but that has changed because it needed to be professional and they are responsible.
“If a referee makes one or two mistakes, they disappear, you don’t see them anymore. They go back to the bakery I think!”
The Spanish Grand Prix stewards — three of whom weren’t officiating in Monaco — looked dimly upon Steiner’s description of them as “laymen” and, by comparison to other sports, as unprofessional.
They reprimanded Steiner for misconduct, though they accepted that he was using the term ‘laymen’ to describe the stewards as working part-time rather than as lacking competence.
The penalty document noted that “Steiner stated that if he had meant to insult or offend anyone, he would have used much different words”.
The stewards agreed, presumably having seen at least some Steiner’s Drive to Survive highlights reel.
Spanish Grand Prix Full Race Highlights | 06:46
INCONSISTENCY CONTINUES
But a reprimand over what amounted to not much more than a misunderstanding won’t be enough to end the debate over how Formula 1 is adjudicated.
Currently every grand prix is refereed by four stewards. One is nominated by the host nation’s governing body and three are supplied by the FIA from a broad pool of candidates who rotate in and out through the year. All four are volunteers.
The stewards investigate incidents and hand out penalties. The race director, Niels Wittich, can only refer incidents to the stewards for inquest and lacks the power to levy punishments.
Wittich had been rotating as race director with Eduardo Freitas in 2022, but the FIA ended that arrangement for this year after complaints about haphazard administration of the sport last season.
But even with this change in race control Steiner believes the model isn’t doing enough to generate consistent results, which in turn is hurting the smaller teams.
“For every team, especially for the teams from P5 to P10 this year, every point counts,” he said. “Can you imagine if you were in the points and you got a penalty for this? This could change your end-of-year result, and by not having done anything wrong. So it’s pretty disappointing.”
It was a prescient concern, coming just days before Yuki Tsunoda was controversially penalised for his defence of ninth place against Zhou Guanyu.
The stewards slapped Tsunoda with a five-second penalty for forcing Zhou off the track with a robust defensive move into turn 1. It dropped him out of the points after disciplined drive that deserved reward.
Unsurprisingly the two drivers saw the incident differently, but it also divided the paddock over what many considered to be a bread-and-butter piece of defensive driving at that type of corner, particularly given Zhou would have understood the risk of failure trying to overtake around the outside.
Had Tsunoda been allowed to keep the position, he would’ve doubled his and AlphaTauri’s points haul for the season. Instead he’s stuck in 16th and the team is rooted in ninth place on the title table.
Alonso has fun with crowd, while racing! | 00:34
BUT THERE’S NO EASY SOLUTION
So would Steiner’s suggestion for permanent, professional stewards solve the problem?
Perhaps — but it might risk creating other ones.
There are two key reasons the FIA has resisted professionalising the stewards.
The first is to keep them wholly independent of the FIA’s employment structure by maintaining their volunteer status. If they’re not paid by the FIA, then the sport should be confident in their ability to uphold the regulations without fear or favour, even when investigating the governing body itself, as stewards are sometimes called to do.
That argument is enough to convince Steiner.
“But what is independent?” he rebutted. “Can you be independent if you are employed? Yes.
“Is the race director employed? Yes. So why does it work for him and not for a steward? It’s the same thing.”
The second reason, arguably more potent, is to avoid perceptions of bias for or against drivers.
In the highly political atmosphere of the F1 paddock, it doesn’t take much to foster animosity between individuals.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff alluded to as much when asked whether he’d support a stewarding overhaul.
“I never had my doubts in the system,” he said. “I had my doubts in the individuals.”
He didn’t name names, but one might imagine former race director Michael Masi might’ve popped into his mind as he answered.
Lando’s race ruined after Hamilton scrap | 01:29
Max Verstappen has also had some personal gripes with particular stewards, in 2017 having slammed “one idiot steward who always makes the decisions up there against me”.
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner even criticised an individual flag marshal at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix for waving yellow flags at the end of Max Verstappen’s final qualifying lap.
While these are all particular and isolated examples, they demonstrate the potential for greater friction in the sport if the people dishing out the penalties are made permanent.
It’s debatable whether that’s a powerful enough reason not to switch to a permanent model or to at least introduce permanent elements to the rotational system.
But it doesn’t take much doubt for F1’s decision-making wheels to grid to a halt — which is precisely why arguments for permanent stewards had been rolling around for decades before Steiner brought it back up at the weekend.