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More than half of drivers skipped meeting with stewards in Mexico
- Corwin Kunst
For years, criticism of stewards has been heard in Formula 1. Decisions are often not understood by drivers and teams and penalties need to be more consistent. Prior to the Mexico Grand Prix, there was a meeting between the stewards and drivers, but many drivers were absent.
FIA sports commissioners invited the drivers and their sport directors to a meeting at the paddock of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez. However, according to information from Auto, Motor und Sport, only eight drivers bothered to attend the meeting.
What was on the agenda and what was discussed? The phenomenon of track limits came up, certain decisions made by the race management in recent weeks were discussed, and furthermore, the main focus was on the level of penalties handed out to drivers when they are involved in an incident on the asphalt.
Heavier penalties in the future
According to the German medium, there was a reasonable consensus among those present on which direction to move in terms of penalties. In the future, we may see more frequent time penalties of 10 or 20 seconds, instead of the five-second penalty we often see now. For serious offences, a driver could even receive a place penalty. He would then be put back one or two positions in the final classification after the race.
Alexander Albon revealed on many occasions that a five-second time penalty is sometimes disproportionate. At the Singapore Grand Prix, for example, Sergio Perez misjudged a duel with Albon, causing contact. For the British Thai himself, the grapes were sour: he lost a lot of time. Perez was able to continue on his way without major time loss and received 'only' a five-second penalty.