Former Ferrari Formula 1 engineer Rob Smedley suggested an ‘augmented steward group’ to speed up decisions during F1 Grands Prix.
F1 has recently had its fair share of criticism over ‘inconsistent’ stewarding by teams, drivers, and fans alike. From Lewis Hamilton’s comments about his penalties during the Hungarian GP to the controversy over Pierre Gasly’s reinstated Monaco GP podium, which was later taken again, the decisions have drawn harsh criticism.
Former Ferrari and Williams engineer Rob Smedley argued that F1 should add an ‘augmented steward group’ to speed up decisions during races. He also suggested saving post-race investigations for more ‘complex’ incidents, while making smaller decisions in-race.
“You watch some of these ‘[Incident] will be investigated after the race’ [messages], and you just think this is fairly obvious,” Smedley said on the High Performance Racing podcast.
“Now, the reason why they do this, if you go behind the scenes, is because all the stewards are super busy with the race, right? You can’t stop the race and say, ‘Let the stewards decide.’ But there could be an augmented steward group that is able to process these much faster.
“When it’s after the race, you should still have the possibility to be investigated after the race, but only for really complex stuff. It should just get processed through.”
‘Right the wrong’ and decisions post race
Smedley’s argument is that the FIA stewards cannot currently process every incident as it happens during races because they lack the capacity. If they introduced a dedicated group of stewards to process in-race incidents, there would be less need to investigate smaller incidents after the race.
“You can get rid of it altogether, just as much as you can’t get rid of the result being provisional straight after the race to do exactly what Otmar [Szafnauer] said, which is to right the wrong that could have happened if there’s been a breach of regulation and it hasn’t been noticed. Then you’ve got to put that right after the race.
“There’s been tons of those, right? Too much plank wear, rear wings at the wrong height, slot gap too open, too closed, whatever it is, underweight, all of those things. You’ve got to take into account,” he continued.
“It is a technical sport, and because of that, you can only arbitrate on the technicalities of the sport after the race because you’ve got to measure.”
If this were to be introduced, it might also reduce the amount of inconsistency in the decisions.
READ MORE: Max Verstappen reveals he ‘seriously considered’ quitting F1
Discussion about this post