There has been a major breakdown in the once-respectful relationship between F1 and the FIA. Just a few weeks ago, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GDPA) issued a strong statement against the FIA president Mohammad Ben Sulayem, raising concerns about the governing body penalizing racers for “trivial matters“.
While the GDPA’s letter raised concerns about penalties primarily for off-track issues such as swearing in press conferences, former Ferrari F1 driver Jean Alesi believes that the FIA also needs to do a better job in handing out penalties for on-track incidents.
“Penalties are okay, as long as they are consistent“, Alesi said in an exclusive interview with F1 Maximaal.nl. He explained further by adding, “If they are strict one day, not another weekend, five seconds one weekend, and a drive-through the next weekend. That is unacceptable“. The Frenchman also labeled the penalties as “arbitrary” and compared them with soccer.
“It seems as if the penalty is arbitrary,” he added. “It seems as if the rules are no longer being applied at all. And that is bad. It is like being at a football (soccer) match and a player touches the ball with his hand and gets a warning: don’t do it again. And the other one gets a red card straight away, you know“?
The GDPA has already highlighted this in the letter they sent at the beginning of last month. However, the FIA president has urged the drivers not to “interfere with that” despite many of them being upset with the way the governing body is dealing with several issues about them.
Inconsistent FIA rulings led to some drivers calling out ‘British bias’
Max Verstappen, who has had several run-ins with the FIA in 2024 itself, is not a fan of them. After receiving two 10-second penalties in Mexico, he raised concerns about potential ‘British bias’ when it came to the stewards’ decision.
He pointed out how Lando Norris received just a five-second penalty for a similar incident at the United States GP in Austin. While Verstappen may not have been penalized more severely due to ‘British bias,’ his remarks do highlight a more important concern — inconsistency in stewards’ decisions, something Alesi also pointed out in his interview.
Max about British bias to independence:
“Sometimes in racing situations, or battles, or certain penalties, and the way people look at success and how much credit they give you or not, I feel that there is a bias.
The problem in F1 is that 80 to 85 per cent of the… pic.twitter.com/OZ4b8Bwffh
— nini (@SCUDERIAFEMBOY) November 30, 2024
One solution that experts have suggested to address this problem is to have the same set of stewards for the whole season instead of rotating them from one week to another. However, with F1 now having a record 24 races in a year, the FIA can’t assign the same set of stewards for each Grand Prix weekend.
This simply means that inconsistencies in decision-making are likely to continue as different sets of stewards are unlikely to view similar incidents in different ways; some may decide to avoid a lighter penalty, while others may deem it fit to punish the drivers and the team more harshly.
