Valencia GP put some focus on how FiA is running the races. There is quite a lot of conflicting information about what Charlie Whiting is doing, what the stewards are doing how the flow of command is. Most people seem to agree on one thing: It takes too long for them to make a ruling after an incident.

At FiA's official website they say this:


More here:
http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understa...sport/5301.html

Maybe this is not much to discuss really, but I fail to see why "A vital part of the race control’s responsibility is that of referring to the race stewards incidents". For sure, incidents that are spotted by race control should be referred to the stewards, but why on earth does other incidents, such as does reported by one or more teams or someone else outside race control, need to be filtered through race control? If it has to, why is there not an extra man that can refer incidents to the stewards without involving Whiting or his closest assistant that can easily become very busy with other things in case of an accident?

Apart from the long delay before Hamilton received his DT in Valencia, we also have Massa crossing the pit exit line in Monaco and Barrichello throwing his steering wheel straight on the racing track. None of those incidents was even investigated! In the case of Rubens and the steering wheel, it was even admitted that they "forgot" to investigate it. There is many examples as well when a decision has taken very long time and very few examples when it have came fast.

We also have the story by Mark Hughes, were he writes (regarding the Valencia incident) :


From what I understand, giving out penalties is the job of the stewards? Can Charlie do it himself? In what cases would that apply? Can he overturn a decision from the stewards?

Apart from Charlie, what "other FIA personnel" is there in race control and what are their roles?

I am genuinely curious.

I think FIA need to put 1 race assistant for any driver. Thus they will be better observed. Also professionals stewards who fully know the rules not guys who only know what a yellow flag means. And more stewards, 2 or 3 teams with 3 stewards each. The decision with the 5 seconds penalty was a farce. It wasn't covered by the rules and he came at the end of the race when action was happened in the lap 8. WTF?
And fired Charlie Whiting. The man is too old...

The permanent steward we had for one year was IMO the best decision the FIA made. Sadly, they very quickly undid it.

Indeed, and from what I remember, they did not split on good terms. There was some accusations of Charlie lying and using forged/fake documents used in WMSC and so on, but I am too tired to search for details about that now.

I think with reference to the Mark Hughes piece I think you may just be taking the words of a journalist a bit too literally

It was who was chosen to be the permanent steward that was the bad idea.

I'd prefer to see one permanent steward and 2 drivers than some numpty fia official from Timbuktu.

That might be, but it adds to the general blur surrounding race control. I am not sure Mark Hughes knows exactly how it works either.

I bring this up again because of this article: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85320 about Alonso being penalized at Silverstone
In short, Alonso pass Kubica by cuting the track, Whiting tells Ferraro to give the position bac and Ferrari thinks they do not need to.

Whiting then say, according to Ferrari, this: "We have given you the chance to do it or not. Things being this way, the stewards will hear the drivers at the end of the race, but I understand your position."

Some minutes later Alonso gets a drive through penalty.

Personally, I think the penalty was correct but as so many times before Whiting is saying one thing and the stewards is doing another. There is no question about that the stewards must look at the case from their perspective and come to a ruling that is different than what Whiting believes, but my problem is that, again, Whiting says something to a team that is not true. Ferrari probably thought "ok, we can handle the hearing, we might get 20 seconds added to our time" and then suddenly they get a DT which put them at the end of the field instead.

Stupid by Ferrari IMO to believe that the pass would go unnoticed, but even more stupid by Whiting to give Ferrari wrong information.

Max "clarified" the position of the key personnel when it suited his cause in Spa. That is, Race Control (Charlie) can refer matters to the stewards for investigation, but RC's job is managing safety aspects of the race, and they should never, ever be asked to waste their time offering their opinion on incidents - their opinion is worthless and just the act of interrupting their thought processes may cause a massive accident. Perhaps I'm over-stating that a bit, but that's pretty much what Max said (and we all know he is infallible and his 'opinion' is law).

And, also, the stewards can choose to investigate any incident they like (you have to assume that they are also monitoring the race, rather than just sitting in a darkened dungeon somewhere). This, of course, opened the way for Max's stooge (Donnelly) to interfere for him.

I still think that Ferrai dind't give us the whole information.

Was CW talking about the cutting chicane incident or about Kubica allegedly forcing Alonso off the track incident?

Also, between what CW said (if the quote given by Ferrari is true) and the end of the race something important happened : Kubica retired, which changed the situation.

It was blatanantly obvious to anyone who ever new anything about F1 that Alonso had broken a very simple rule.

All he had to do was give the place back.

All the team had to do was instruct him to give it back.

They could even have called me and I would have told them.

They didn't. They tried it on. They got punished. They deserved it.

RC and the stewards did nothing wrong.

its simple CW does not have the power to say it will be penalty a,b or c or when it will be heard etc he only advises, its the stewards who have all the power when it comes to penalties, what and when they are decided.

IMHO the only time they will look into a penalty after the race is if they need to talk to one or more drivers after the race because what they see on the cameras needs clarification, or its within the last 5 laps. However if what the stewards see is enough to make up their minds without hearing from the driver we get the penalty during the race.
But then we have seen this many times before.

IMHO CW may have thought with what he was being told the stewards would need to talk to both drivers as regards the need for a penalty or extenuating circumstance, However the stewards when seeing the video evidence showing that Alonso cut the corner by more than 2 cars widths may well have thought that was far more then being forced off the track hence no reason to talk to both drivers.
But that is just my opinion when looking at Alonso's cutting of the chicane.

Bumping this due to the last events at Spa. Felipe Massa put his car more than one meter (!) ahead of his grid spot and there was no action from race control.
More here: Massa got away with it