Sergio Perez voices his alarm over F1 stewards’ erratic rulings, spotlighting a deep-seated issue affecting drivers’ fairness and safety on the track.
Although Perez agrees with the decision to penalize Fernando Alonso in Melbourne, the Red Bull driver worries this won’t serve as a precedent for punishing similar incidents.
The Mexican pointed to his own three-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Hulkenberg in Q1 and other unpunished situations to highlight his claims of a lack of consistency.
“My opinion is that it was definitely a bit over the line,” Perez said regarding Alonso’s defensive tactics against Russell.
“I would say it’s somewhat unnecessary to do that and especially dangerous.”
“But my biggest fear is that this incident happens again this weekend, or next weekend, and nothing happens in the stewards’ room. That’s my biggest fear.”
“Because we struggle a lot to keep consistency in the decisions.”
“For instance, in Jeddah, there was a block at 300 km/h, two cars, [Oliver] Bearman and [Alex] Albon, no penalty. I unintentionally blocked Hülkenberg in Melbourne, he lost half a tenth. He goes faster in the next lap, I get a three-place penalty.”
“I think the main topic of discussion should be consistency. If incidents like this are to be penalized, they should be every weekend.”
“Because as a driver, it hurts a lot when you work hard and you see this inconsistency.”
When asked if it would be beneficial to have a permanent steward in place, Perez replied: “Definitely.”
“I’m thinking either permanent stewards or more communication within the FIA. Continue to progress race after race to have that regularity.”
“Because it’s not possible that you have, for example, what I had last weekend. I blocked Hulkenberg, he lost half a tenth, he goes faster in the next lap, and the damage was minimal for him. And then you have [Valtteri] Bottas at 300 km/h, two cars in a very dangerous spot and no penalty. So, we need this improvement and this regularity within the FIA.”
It was suggested that one of the drawbacks of having a permanent steward could be that one person might have a bias against a driver and continue to penalize them more harshly.
“I understand the idea, but it feels like there are a lot of disconnects from one weekend to another between the stewards.”
“When there’s a change of sporting stewards, it feels like there’s no continuity in relation to what happened in the last 10 races, for example.”
“That’s my point of view, there’s no regularity, there’s no continuity of facts.”
“More than to the regularity of the sanctions, I think about the continuity of communication.”
“It’s like with car settings, if you don’t learn race after race what works for your car, you will never find the right settings.”
“So, it’s the same with stewards; if they don’t communicate weekend after weekend about the incidents that occurred, etc., we will really struggle to find the right compromise between changing stewards and permanent stewards.”
Perez Flags F1 Stewards’ Inconsistency Crisis. Perez Flags F1 Stewards’ Inconsistency Crisis
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