Anything Goes: The Fun New World Of Formula One

Only four races into the 2010 Formula One season and already there’s a noticeable change into how the stewards are handling on-track transgressions.

But is this a good thing?

Most F1 fans would agree that some of the penalties handed out over the past few years have been, at best, bewildering and at times seemingly vindictive and unnecessarily harsh. In 2009, Sebastien Vettel received a 10 grid-place penalty following an innocuous racing incident with Robert Kubica in Melbourne.

This year, however, the stewards are seemingly happy to get by with a reprimand—a stern word and a promise that the driver won’t do it again—no matter how bad the transgression happens to be. A year later, also in Melbourne, Mark Webber avoids getting even a slap on the wrist for unnecessarily running into Lewis Hamilton in sheer frustration.

So what’s changed?

In 2010, the stewards’ panel now includes a former racing driver and it seems that they are exerting a lot of influence. To date in 2010, here has been no penalty of significance handed out, despite numerous noteworthy incidents.

In the Shanghai Grand Prix alone, there were four significant incidents—two of them very serious and only one of which resulted in the stewards taking action. This doesn’t include Fernando Alonso’s jump start and drive-through penalty which not even the stewards could mess up.

The first two incidents occurred heading into the pits after one of the multiple weather changes early in the race. First Hamilton and then Alonso pulled risky overtaking moves in the pit entry, both of whom left the track to complete them.

In Hamilton’s defence he was ahead of Vettel heading into the pits, but he clearly left the track by cutting the corner.The track, in this instance, was defined by the white lines and there was only room for one car and Vettel held the line.

Alonso was even more brazen. He pulled a move up the inside of teammate Felipe Massa, left the track, cut the corner, and then ran him off the road returning to the track. Massa then had to suffer the ignominy of queuing in the pits while Alonso had his tyres changed.

Neither Hamilton or Alonso was challenged for their actions.

We then had the ridiculous shenanigans between Hamilton and Vettel as they went down pit lane side by side. Ignoring the fact that they should never have ended up alongside each other, Hamilton should have yielded and there is no excuse for Vettel squeezing him into other competitors pit boxes.

Their punishment—reprimands. This is the second one Hamilton has received in as many races.

Then we have Jenson Button’s hijinks at the restart after the safety car. Button braked heavily to dramatically slow the field at the hairpin and then accelerated away to restart the lap.

The result was that cars were forced to take evasive action to avoid collisions and ultimately contributed to Vettel and Hamilton running Mark Webber off the road in the restart.

The rules are pretty clear on this. Article 40.11 of the 2010 Formula One Sporting Regulations states “drivers must proceed at a pace which involves no erratic acceleration or braking nor any other manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers or impede the restart.”

You would think that the stewards would take a pretty dim view of this, but there is no indication that it was even acknowledged as an incident.

The inclusion of a driver into the stewards’ panel has resulted in everything being considered a 'racing incident'—which is apparently code for anything goes. Of the former drivers used so far, only Alain Prost was a successful F1 driver and he was responsible for deliberately running Ayrton Senna off the road to secure a championship—not the best precedent to be setting.

F1 drivers are ultimate competitors. They are paid to push the limits—of themselves, their cars, the tracks, and the rules. They are like small children—they need to be given limits and boundaries and they need to be taught that there are real consequences for their actions. Reprimands don’t cut it and ignoring incidents altogether is going to have repercussions in later races.

Let’s just hope that the stewards’ inaction doesn’t end up getting someone hurt.