Carlos Sainz believes that adding several ex-Formula 1 drivers to the stewarding panel would ensure that the sport’s divisive racing guidelines are not required.
A disgruntled Sainz continues to maintain his innocence following a five-place grid penalty in Mexico, awarded for colliding with Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Austin.
He escaped a further penalty in Las Vegas for almost colliding with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin in Q1 in Las Vegas, and once again was left unimpressed by the stewards.
However, as a Director of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), he is seeking to utilise his influence to champion a radical change to racing guidelines and stewarding decisions.
Ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, Sainz has called for TV-style analysis undertaken by F1 broadcasters after the races to become the standard by which incidents are reviewed.
“I’ve seen some analysis done of quite a lot of the incidents, and I think there was some of them Karun Chandhok, in some of them Jolyon Palmer, some of them Anthony Davidson,” Sainz told media including Motorsport Week.
“Every time I see this analysis that they do and the verdict that they give from racing drivers that have been recently racing, I think they do a very good analysis and they put the blame correctly most of the time on who actually has the blame, or if it’s actually just a racing incident.
Sainz demands a rethink of rules
Revealing his ideal future regulations, Sainz promoted the work of broadcasters, highlighting their analysis as closely resembling the existing work of the stewards.
“My future ideal is no guidelines and people that are able to judge these sort of incidents, as well as these three people that I just mentioned do after the races,” he confirmed.
“Again, this is just my opinion, but I’m quite impressed at the job that some of the broadcasts do after a race with this in-depth analysis of each of the incidents and how they apply blame or no blame into certain scenarios.
“I think that’s a level of analysis and a level of steward-ness, if you want to call it that way, that I think is very high level. It probably doesn’t mean that we will agree 100 per cent on the cases of what these three people, three ex-drivers, give, but I think they are a lot of times are very close to being 90% correct.
“I really feel like they understood what happened in that incident and the judgement that they take. And this doesn’t mean that the stewards don’t do a good job, it just means what I see after the race from these people is actually a very high level.
“I think without guidelines they would be able to judge each decision correctly and there wouldn’t be a bias or anything like that.”
Immediate racing guidelines changes incoming?
Sainz also confirmed other drivers were unhappy with the stewards’ decision-making process and regulations, revealing talks are underway for a solution to the deadlock.
“I think first we need to sit together, analyse quite a few of the incidents, and I think there’s been quite a lot of division in opinion between drivers, FIA stewards, just different ways to judge different incidents,” he said.
“I think this year there’s been quite a bit of confusion regarding a few of them. I think we need to sit together and go through them and analyse them calmly out of a heat of the moment.
“We are now on a Thursday before a race, and try to all hopefully come up with a solution, a better solution for the future.
“My personal opinion on here – I’m not talking from a GPDA perspective, I’m just talking as Carlos Sainz – is that there is potential to do better. And I think the guidelines themselves have created more problems than solutions to a lot of issues that have happened this year in the ways we judge incidents.
“There’s been barely any room for racing incidents this year. There’s always been either white or black because we’ve been supported by the guidelines, and the guidelines haven’t allowed racing incidents to be judged as racing incidents, because there was always a tyre in front, or behind a mirror… whatever the guidelines say, I don’t know them by heart! It’s been in that sense a bit of not successful implementation of those guidelines.”
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