F1 drivers hope that the FIA can learn and be more consistent after acceptance of leniency in Singapore impeding case.
The F1 Japanese GP weekend’s team managers meet discussed the impeding case from Singapore GP where both Max Verstappen and Logan Sagreant were let off easily without any penalties against their names when such cases have earned penalties before.
The FIA steward from Singapore – Matteo Perini – who is also officiating in Japanese GP admitted that they may have been lenient taking into account the mitigating circumstances like lack of team call to the driver about the whereabouts of their rivals on track.
But it is something that shouldn’t be taken into account as per Perini and so the likes of Verstappen and Sargeant should have had grid drops when they impeded Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll respectively. The Singapore case won’t be taken as a precedent now.
But the pitlane incident of Verstappen slowing wasn’t a wrong call as per Perini since it is not banned per se. Although now they will have a look into the rule to bring in the changes. The F1 drivers hope that the FIA will learn from this and be more careful.
“It was definitely a bit strange to see even Max got away with those reprimands last week,” said the GPDA director and Mercedes driver George Russell. We obviously always look for consistency. We appreciate it’s not easy in the best of times, but last week was obviously a bit of a slam dunk. So it was strange why it didn’t happen.”
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz pointed that almost everyone on the grid has had a penalty but the driver who is leading comfortably is let off. “It’s just a shame that the guy that is dominating and winning pretty much every race is the only one that gets away with it, while all the others we’ve had penalties this year,” he said.
“And when I say everyone, everyone has pretty much had penalties. So it’s a bit strange, and yeah, hopefully they learn from it.” Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, raised an interesting topic of the usage of Artificial Intelligence in future.
“Not really, [there’s no clarity],” he said. “How many years have we…. That rule has been the same for ages, you know? I think we need to start looking into AI for this sort of thing, so we get good decisions.”
Here’s F1 drivers sharing their view on the case
Here’s Pierre Gasly along with Max Verstappen on the case