Carlos Sainz has called for a crucial change in the stewarding of Formula 1 after being retrospectively cleared of wrongdoing in last month’s Dutch Grand Prix.
Last weekend, the Spaniard had the two penalty points put on his Super Licence rescinded after Williams put in a Right of Review claim in relation to his incident with Liam Lawson.
Sainz and the Kiwi made contact at Turn 1 in the race at Zandvoort, the Racing Bulls being ahead, with Sainz on the outside.
The stewards handed Sainz a time penalty and the two points at the time, which he called “a complete joke”.
Williams submitted fresh evidence to support Sainz’s claim, which led to the decision being overturned, putting Sainz down to just two points on his licence in total.
In conjunction with the controversy over the situation, Sainz has reopened previous debates about the structure of stewarding in F1.
A GPDA director, Sainz said ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, that fixed stewards should be implemented, alleging the sport and the FIA itself are concurrent on this stance.
“F1 and the FIA all agree that should be the way forward, where at least two of the three stewards are permanent and we have one rotational for teaching purposes,” he said.
“For sporting fairness purposes, it should be to have one rotational but two permanent, and we shouldn’t care about who pays, because there is enough money in this sport to pay those salaries in the same way there’s enough money in the sport to pay the salaries of all the other people.
“So if that’s the right way forward, I cannot believe we’re talking about those salaries.
“What would help is that if I knew the referee was the same in every race, for me, I would know the pattern and, through years of working with them, how they were going to judge an incident in that moment.
“When you work with different races with different referees, it is very difficult to understand if [a penalty] is coming or not.
“I think not everyone agrees that they can use the argument of football.
“We have different referees and no one complains, but there could be a guy who gets penalised two or three times and he will start blaming ‘the steward that hates me.’
“So I understand where they come from, those not in favour or permanent stewards, I understand, but I just have a very clear opinion on it.”
Sainz grateful to F1 stewards for reopening ‘black and white’ Zandvoort clash
Initially incandescent at Zandvoort, Sainz claimed that the stewards appeared unwilling to cooperate with Sainz’s version of events.
But the 30-year-old has now shown his gratitude to them, saying that they seemed open to reopening the incident amid Williams’ submission of onboard camera footage.
“I could tell that they had a good conversation and realisation that maybe the judgment was not fully correct, and there were enough mechanisms to open the discussion again,” he added.
“I think that is a positive step, and the fact that they even took the opportunity to cancel the penalty points is a good sign.
“I’m not saying every case and scenario should be the same, but cases like that were pretty obvious, and there have been times in the past where I’d like to have done this, but the team just said: ‘Look, we won’t get anywhere because it has to be new and relevant.’
“The problem, I think, is that it was not as obvious as it could be, down to interpretation, but it was black and white, like there should never have been a penalty.
“I think it was so obvious the moment we presented the new evidence, that it was enough to open the discussion again and get it to correct itself.”
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