McLaren’s Push Forces FIA to Rethink Race Penalty Rules
Oct.27 - F1's governing body has promised disgruntled drivers that changes to the driving guidelines will be made before the end of the season.
The move follows a long and intense FIA driver briefing in Mexico, in the wake of Lando Norris' controversial 5-second penalty for passing Max Verstappen off the track a week ago in Austin.
McLaren tried to appeal the penalty in Mexico, but the FIA rejected the 'right of review' because the team lacked new evidence. "We will continue to work closely with the FIA to further understand how teams can constructively challenge decisions that lead to an incorrect classification of the race," the Woking based team said in response.
McLaren's basic argument was that while Verstappen technically reached the apex before Norris, he only did that because he never intended to actually take the corner normally.
"He would not have been ahead of me at the apex if he had braked where he should have and stayed on the track," Norris said. "Many other drivers and teams did not agree (with Verstappen's driving) either."
The controversy sparked calls for permanent stewards, with 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve calling the current officials at each race "real amateurs".
Title contenders Verstappen and Norris, although friends off the track, are understood to have exchanged barbs in the driver briefing in Mexico.
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, who said earlier that "both" Norris and Verstappen were "guilty" of offenses in Austin, called the FIA briefing "positive and productive".
"I think a lot of drivers opened up about how they felt about each situation and what we think is the best way forward," he said.
"I think in Qatar we will have some solutions for the driving guidelines that the stewards are going to apply penalties with. Hopefully they will offer better understanding for the driver and better racing in general."
An FIA spokesman confirmed to De Telegraaf newspaper: "There was a general commitment to continue updating the guidelines.
"Given that the guidelines were developed in conjunction with the drivers' union, any updates are made in consultation with the drivers. Not because of isolated incidents such as Austin, but driven by the desire to bring consistency to the stewards' determinations and decisions."
Grand Prix Drivers' Association boss Alex Wurz backed the moves.
"We appreciate having a conversation to make the decisions more consistent," he said. "There is already consistency, but we collectively see that there is room for improvement.
"Nobody wants to see too many rules, and we want to see good racing action, and the general feeling is that we will improve the guidelines for 2025."
✅ Check out more posts with related topics:
the stewards need to look at each situation individually and understand it from a more human point of view......otherwise get rid of the stewards and employ AI like VAR.....RULES ARE RULES and a computer can do that.....but humans have an opinion too and if the collective of stewards dont have the freedom to step up and say well we can see what happened ther.....2 penalty offences cancel each other out.....race on
I like the idea of human stewards, but the current set up does seem amateurish and leads to inconsistency. Time for a shorter list of stewards who have a job versus a perk.
Way to many rules as it is. When your penalizing actual racing you have a problem. Im talking about things like "Oh too many moves of the car getting into the corner", "oh the car veered to the right or left down the strt he's blocking. They need to get rid of all the rules that dumb down actual racing. They also need to quit worrying about how many and what compound tire they are using over the weekend. Open up the performance and racing limits and let the teams get after it.
✅ Checkout the latest 50 F1 Fans comments.