Mika Salo Unsure About Continuing in F1 Steward Role
Feb.17 - Mika Salo doubts he will be serving as an occasional Formula 1 steward this year.
Fellow former F1 driver Johnny Herbert was actually scheduled to serve as a steward at the opening grand prix of 2025 in Melbourne next month.
But the FIA performed a u-turn, concluding that Herbert's parallel media work - primarily columns for gambling websites - was "incompatible" with serving as one of the sport's officials.
"You can't be a journalist and express your point of view and then play the referee," FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem explained last week.
Salo, who has been a regular in the F1 stewards' office since 2012, revealed to Iltalehti newspaper that he will continue to also work as a pundit for Viaplay this year.
"I'm not saying it's for sure, but I'm unlikely to serve as a steward anymore," the Finn said.
"I didn't have time last year. There are also small conflicts of interest when you do other work related to the same sport. Then it's difficult to be in a refereeing situation.
"I'd rather not do it at all than take any risk of someone getting angry about what I do."
However, the former Sauber and Ferrari driver thinks his situation is slightly different to Herbert's.
"He criticised Max Verstappen and a few other drivers quite publicly, so the FIA considered him to be a biased judge," Salo said.
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He's barely done stewarding for a little while anymore anyway, with last season not the only one in which he wasn't on any steward panel.
Of course, his other F1-related work has also been in media as part of V Sport/Viaplay's Finnish pundit-commentary roster, as well as in the predecessor (pre-2022) broadcaster MTV's roster since the mid-2000s, so all in all, he's done Finnish media work regarding F1 for around 20 years, while Johnny has been doing the same with UK's Sky since their first year of broadcasting F1.
Punditry and Journalism pays well, Stewarding doesn't . Simple
That depends at least partly on how much one does such work.
Mika Salo has been in the GP weekend broadcasts only relatively rarely ever since 2014, so his salary for that work might consequently be relatively low compared to his primary sources of income with the punditry work effectively a mere addition or part-time side job.
Or maybe its because he isnt that wanted/sort after as a pundit... Sky have deep pockets and choose the ex brit drivers because the uk is there main market, i seem to remember reading being an f1 steward , they get £300+hotels/flights etc per race weekend so basically nothing, but maybe im wrong on that
I think appearing relatively rarely is a personal preference, but I don't know any better either.
Nevertheless, among all the recurrently appearing individuals, he's more or less the least or at least second-least appearing regardless of motive or anything else.
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