Why Carlos Sainz is calling for TV analysts to join F1’s stewarding panel

Carlos Sainz suggested that the addition of two or three recent ex-Formula 1 drivers to the stewarding panel would dispel the need for the controversial driving guidelines, based on his approval of broadcasters’ analysis of recent incidents.

The drivers and the FIA will table a discussion on Thursday evening over the state of F1’s driving guidelines, with Sainz suggesting that the application of those guidelines have created more problems due to their subjectivity and interpretation.

The Spaniard, who along with George Russell is a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA), felt that many of the drivers disagreed with the application of those guidelines and that recent investigations and penalties have been incorrect.

However, he lauded the broadcasters’ analysis of recent incidents and felt that these demonstrated the value of a driver with recent F1 experience on the stewards’ panel. Sainz stated that he agreed “90%” of the time with the ex-drivers’ assessments of a given incident – F1 TV’s Jolyon Palmer, and Sky F1’s Karun Chandhok and Anthony Davidson having been mentioned by name.

Asked by Motorsport.com if he felt racing guidelines were truly necessarily, Sainz reckoned that including ex-drivers of a similar vintage to those employed by the current broadcasters in the decision-making process would avoid the need for strictly regulated racing.

“I’ve seen some analysis done of quite a lot of the incidents, and I think there was some of them Karun Chandhok, in some of them Jolyon Palmer, some of them Anthony Davidson,” Sainz said.

“Every time I see this analysis that they do and the verdict that they give from racing drivers that have been recently racing, I think they do a very good analysis and they put the blame correctly most of the time on who actually has the blame, or if it’s actually just a racing incident.

Anthony Davidson, Sky F1

Photo by: Sky Sport

“My future ideal is no guidelines and people that are able to judge these sort of incidents, as well as these three people that I just mentioned do after the races.

“Again, this is just my opinion, but I’m quite impressed at the job that some of the broadcasts do after a race with this in-depth analysis of each of the incidents and how they apply blame or no blame into certain scenarios.

“I think that’s a level of analysis and a level of steward-ness, if you want to call it that way, that I think is very high level. It probably doesn’t mean that we will agree 100% on the cases of what these three people, three ex-drivers, give, but I think they are a lot of times are very close to being 90% correct.

“I really feel like they understood what happened in that incident and the judgement that they take. And this doesn’t mean that the stewards don’t do a good job, it just means what I see after the race from these people is actually a very high level.

“I think without guidelines they would be able to judge each decision correctly and there wouldn’t be a bias or anything like that.”

Sainz stated that the guidelines encourage the stewards to apply blame to an incident that would have previously been considered as a racing incident.

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Speaking about the guidelines, Sainz said: “I think first we need to sit together, analyse quite a few of the incidents, and I think there’s been quite a lot of division in opinion between drivers, FIA stewards, just different ways to judge different incidents.

“I think this year there’s been quite a bit of confusion regarding a few of them. I think we need to sit together and go through them and analyse them calmly out of a heat of the moment.

“We are now on a Thursday before a race, and try to all hopefully come up with a solution, a better solution for the future.

“My personal opinion on here – I’m not talking from a GPDA perspective, I’m just talking as Carlos Sainz – is that there is potential to do better. And I think the guidelines themselves have created more problems than solutions to a lot of issues that have happened this year in the ways we judge incidents.

“There’s been barely any room for racing incidents this year. There’s always been either white or black because we’ve been supported by the guidelines, and the guidelines haven’t allowed racing incidents to be judged as racing incidents, because there was always a tyre in front, or behind a mirror… whatever the guidelines say, I don’t know them by heart! It’s been in that sense a bit of not successful implementation of those guidelines.”

Photos from Qatar GP – Thursday