New department set up by the FIA aims to professionalise stewarding.

Though this will not meet the call for professional stewards that some drivers and team bosses have called for, it should improve stewarding which has been the subject of criticism for some time.

The new department, which was first announced late last year, comes at a time the sport appears to be heading for a clash with its governing body which at the same time is riven with issues including high profile sackings and departures.

Niels Wittich, one of two race directors introduced in the wake of Michael Masi's 'departure' was fired by Mohammed ben Sulayem, without warning or explanation, ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, while veteran steward Tim Mayer was shown the door after disagreeing with the FIA president over the track invasion at the Circuit of the Americas.

Further chaos ensued when the person (Janette Tan) brought in to replace Rui Marques as race director for F2 and F3, after the Portuguese was called on to replace Wittich, was herself fired before she had even overseen a race weekend.

As the FIA's single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis, explains, the new department is intended to professionalise stewarding as opposed to the current process where the sport relies heavily on volunteers, who are often compromised in terms of the time they can devote to the sport, a significant issue over complicated, controversial race weekends.

"It's probably getting a bit unfair to just rely on people to do it out of their good heart, and that's what we have now," he told Motorsport.com. "We want to go to a more professional body in the future.

"That's not to exclude volunteers," he added, "but it's to have a body that can spend the Monday morning after a race analysing every single decision, making sure it was reached correctly, seeing what could be improved, etc.

"That will be combined with a more powerful remote centre, where more monitoring will take place for range of offences, and all of that will be linked together. That's the general target.

"Ultimately, the department] will bring up a wider pool of people available to do it, and will provide that they will have more time to spend on analysing everything and so on. Just to be clear, that's without taking anything away from the group we have now, which is very experienced and has been serving for 20 years."

McLaren boss, Zak Brown expressed his frustration with stewarding on a number of occasions last year, feeling that the various incidents involving Lando Norris and Max Verstappen weren't handled as they should have been.

"There's already a high-performance steward programme and race director programme, which has been going on for a couple of years," said Tombazis. "And there have been around 30 people who've been selected from national sporting authorities and sponsored by certain people and helped through the program from different regions.

"These people move onto the ladder and ultimately could end up in Formula 1 or rallying or Formula E in the future. So, I think that is going on reasonably okay for a number of years.

"That said, there's also the feeling that it must step even further," he admitted. "It must be a proper department that leads these matters.

"We feel that in Formula 1 we get quite a lot of comments about the consistency of stewards. I would hasten to add that analysis was also done even by teams, that has indicated that the stewards are actually pretty consistent.

"However, they are people who definitely have a huge level of expertise, but we don't have as many as we would like available or trained up."

In the meantime, the FIA might consider appointing a number of 'professional' stewards in the wake of the latest steps taken by Ben Sulayem as he continues to clamp down on the 'behaviour' of drivers and team bosses.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Geeza1966, 10 hours ago

"Many good ideas here from everyone... And I suppose the most critical element is that we need clear and concise stewarding carried out by an experienced and neutral panel of adjudicators. How often have we heard the drivers talking about consistency in decision making etc?? To help with the long season and travel etc too, maybe there could even be 3 groups of stewards that work on a rotational basis, but all with the same criteria of judgement in place?? Again, just a thought....."

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2. Posted by BillH, 14 hours ago

"Perhaps the same pool of stewards at every race will bring some consistency into the show.
Most of the people in any race control room/tower are volunteers and do so for the love of the sport, either certified FIA Clerk of the Course, Steward and so on.
There is definitely a big reliance on folks that may already be short of time to spend on such a good sport, so at the top level a professional pool of officials is a positive approach.
If you ever want to know why "will be decided after the race..." happens, this is because so much can happen with just 20 cars on track and the rules are quite detailed and technical."

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3. Posted by rambler, 15 hours ago

"The stewards should have there own body, as do referees in other sports. They would be payed by the teams and selected for a particular race by a draw. But that said it is a move in the right direction.

AI is not an option, there would not be enough data in the 200+ races in the last 10 years to train the model. AI, isn't intelligent, its abilities have been massively over hyped. Most of the delay in the results is allowing time for the culprits to be debriefed, showered and changed before being interviewed.

Technology can be used to report track limits infringements in real time and for car data analysis in a situation where one driver is pushed off the track but this does takes time. With the number of staff the FIA says it has monitoring the race it shouldn't take 2hours. "

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4. Posted by Superbird70, 15 hours ago

"Although not a fan of AI, I am thinking that this is an area where it could be put to good use. The AI steward could be trained using examples and outcomes from the last 5-10 years to arrive at objective decisions and penalties. Of course all the teams would need to agree on its use and the fact that all decisions are final without opportunity for appeal. Decisions could be made in near real time, and there would be less whining over the radio from aggrieved drivers, and team principals. None of this 2 hour delay after a race where the standings are changed. Also no one for the press to hound over perceived biases."

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5. Posted by Laps, 19 hours ago

"Considering the FIA’s recent track record there is obvious danger in Stewards being ‘employees’ rather than’Sporting Arbiters’. Could we not have a system where experienced individuals wishing to be Stewards apply to be on a ‘Panel’? From this panel the Drivers vote for 4 or 6 Stewards to hold office for a Season. "

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