The FIA has tweaked the 2026 International Sporting Code allowing the stewards of Formula 1 World Championship events to “re-examine” their own decisions.
Governance within F1 has always been a sensitive topic. The last few years have seen many fingers pointed towards the stewards’ consistency and application of the rule-book.
In a bid provide a more equitable decision-making platform to the ones in charge of enforcing the rules of the sport, the governing body, FIA, has now called itself into action and amended the 2026 edition of the International Sporting Code (ISC).
In effect, this will allow the stewards to, on their own initiative, review their own decisions from 2026 onwards.
Earlier, a “right of review” was only available to the addressees of the stewards’ decision under Article 14 of the ISC i.e., the teams.
Upon an application, this power could be exercised by the stewards if they deemed any “significant and relevant new element” was brought to their notice which was previously unavailable at the time of making the decision.
This rule was put into motion by Williams after the Dutch GP when Carlos Sainz had incurred a 10-second time penalty, and penalty points on his superlicense for his incident with Liam Lawson.
Upon review, the stewards decided to redact the penalty points after reviewing Lawson’s onboard footage which was not privy to them at the time of handing the Spaniard the penalty.
The FIA has now inserted Article 14.1.2 into the ISC which essentially allows the stewards to take upon this endeavour “on their own initiative” if they “discover a significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to them at the time of their decision.”
That said, the modern era of F1 has seen 14 instances when the right of review was triggered with only four attempts succeeding – including Sainz.
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