Have The F1 Stewards' Forgotten Their Own Rules?

The F1 stewards raised a few eyebrows during the Belgian Grand Prix. Their decisions on driver penalties have once again set tongues wagging. So, what exactly went on?

First lap incidents aren’t unusual in F1. Contact between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell saw Russell DNF and Hamilton take a five-second time penalty. Typically, it takes a lot for the stewards to award a penalty for anything that happens during the first lap. Usually, contact is called a racing incident.

Cold tyres are the reason for contact on the first lap of a race most of the time. The lack of grip and the drivers can’t always control the car because of it. So, the stewards give them some leeway as the tyres get up to temperature.

Hamilton wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt in Belgium, though. After Russell’s car was beached in the gravel, Hamilton went on the radio to say that he had lost downforce since a car was ahead of him, which meant that he couldn’t control the car. The consensus from fans and commentators was that it should be be boiled down to a racing incident. Unfortunate for George, but nothing malicious behind what had happened.

The stewards did not take the same view. Instead, they gave Hamilton a five-second time penalty. In the FIA document that was published when the penalty was announced, the stewards had said that since Hamilton had tried to leave appropriate racing room and attempted to avoid contact with Russell, they reduced what would have usually been a 10 second time penalty to five seconds.

In the same document, they said that there were “several mitigating circumstances” and that “the collision resulted from a loss of front-end grip rather than from an aggressive or deliberate manoeuvre”. For me, I would see this as a racing incident with no other action.

The question is, though, were the stewards following their own rules? In the FIA rulebook, it states that when penalties are given out, the end result should not be taken into consideration. It doesn’t matter if a car has a lot of damage or has to retire, penalty decisions should be given independent of that.

However, it doesn’t feel like that is the case here. From the outside, it looks like the FIA imposed a harsher penalty on Hamilton because the result of the incident caused Russell to retire.

The confusion about the decision carried on later in the race. This time it was directed towards Hamilton’s teammate, Charles Leclerc. An incident between him and Oscar Piastri took place as Piastri tried to overtake him. Leclerc left little to no racing room for the McLaren driver. The resulting contact left Piastri with some damage to his front wing. The FIA did opt to investigate the incident and the consensus from people watching was that was surely going to be a penalty for Leclerc. The stewards decided that the incident didn’t warrant any penalty. Leclerc walked away from that incident without an issue, Piastri with a damaged car and fans were left scratching their heads.

Inconsistencies in the FIA decisions aren’t a new thing. Earlier this season Pierre Gasly had his penalty in Monaco rescinded after Alpine went to the FIA with proof that he hadn’t been speeding in the pitlane. It led to questions of whether any of the drivers deserved the time penalties for speeding in the pitlane. So many of them had been given the same penalty that it seemed strange that it would happen so frequently in one race. Especially when it turned out that it was down to the fact that the pitlane was longer because of the addition of Cadillac as the 11th team.

Formula One is at its best when there’s trust between the drivers and the governing body and when the drivers feel like they’re being listened to. So far this season, it feels like that trust continues to erode and the FIA aren’t willing to answer questions for the drivers or the fans. But how long can they avoid the question?