George Russell has claimed that Formula 1 “may as well have lawyers” should the stewards continue to apply the driving guidelines too literally.
Drivers have argued for months that literal interpretations of the rules do not always reflect how racing incidents unfold at full speed.
Oscar Piastri, though, believes the meeting that took place prior to this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix marked a step in the right direction.
“Yes, I think it was very productive. I think it’s good to always give out direct feedback to the stewards,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“I think tidying up a few things. I think generally things have been pretty good.”
Piastri noted that the guidelines themselves are inevitably imperfect. Several of the case studies highlighted moments where the rulebook could not fully capture the situation’s complexity.
“I think whenever you try and put any kind of guidelines or wording around going racing, there’s always going to be gaps somewhere. It’s impossible to cover everything,” he added.
“I think just some ideas and opinions on how we can close some of those gaps was good.”
Russell wants more ‘common sense’ applied to decisions
Russell echoed Piastri’s view. He pointed out that the group reached near total agreement when reviewing a set of contentious incidents from across the F1 season.
According to Russell, the consensus reinforced the need for the stewards to apply guidelines with flexibility, not as a fixed law.
“Yes, definitely productive,” he concurred. “From the incidents that were shown, all of the drivers agreed what the penalty either should have been or lack of penalty as such.”
Russell emphasised that both drivers and stewards bring decades of accumulated racing instinct. This is something he thinks should weigh more heavily in decisions.
“Every track is different, every overtake is different, every circumstance is different,” he highlighted.
“Sometimes you’ve got to use that racing knowledge that as drivers we’ve all accumulated over 20 years, 30 years, 40 years of our life.”
He argued that applying the rules too literally risks producing decisions that look correct on paper but feel wrong in practice.
The aim, the Briton said, is to allow common sense to guide rulings where the guidelines hit their limits.
“Sometimes you’ve got to judge it based upon the common sense of racing as opposed to exactly what a guideline says,” he outlined.
“Otherwise, you may as well have a lawyer dishing out the penalties. Hopefully we can migrate more in this direction.”
READ MORE – FIA meets with F1 drivers to discuss current racing guidelines
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