Sainz welcomes penalty U-turn but urges stewarding overhaul in F1

Williams driver Carlos Sainz has reignited the debate over Formula 1’s stewarding structure, urging the FIA to employ permanent officials after his Dutch Grand Prix penalty was overturned by officials.

The Spaniard had two Super Licence penalty points scrubbed last weekend following a successful Right of Review by Williams, who presented fresh evidence regarding his clash with Liam Lawson at Turn 1 in Zandvoort.

At the time, Sainz branded the sanction “a complete joke”, and while the reversal has eased the sting, the episode has left him calling for systemic change.

“Two permanent, one rotational”

As a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, Sainz believes the solution lies in consistency.

“F1 and the FIA all agree that should be the way forward, where at least two of the three stewards are permanent and we have one rotational for teaching purposes,” he said.

“For sporting fairness purposes, it should be to have one rotational but two permanent, and we shouldn’t care about who pays, because there is enough money in this sport to pay those salaries in the same way there’s enough money in the sport to pay the salaries of all the other people.

“So if that’s the right way forward, I cannot believe we’re talking about those salaries.

“What would help is that if I knew the referee was the same in every race, for me, I would know the pattern and, through years of working with them, how they were going to judge an incident in that moment.

“When you work with different races with different referees, it is very difficult to understand if [a penalty] is coming or not.”
Football vs Formula 1

• Read also: FIA overturns Sainz’s Dutch GP penalty after Williams right of review

Some in the paddock argue that F1 should embrace football’s model of rotating referees, but Sainz remains unconvinced.

“I think not everyone agrees that they can use the argument of football,” he said.

“We have different referees and no one complains, but there could be a guy who gets penalised two or three times and he will start blaming ‘the steward that hates me.’

“So I understand where they come from, those not in favour or permanent stewards, I understand, but I just have a very clear opinion on it.”

A Positive Step

Despite his initial fury at Zandvoort, Sainz praised the FIA for reopening his case once Williams presented new onboard footage.

“I could tell that they had a good conversation and realisation that maybe the judgment was not fully correct, and there were enough mechanisms to open the discussion again,” he said.

“I think that is a positive step, and the fact that they even took the opportunity to cancel the penalty points is a good sign.

“I’m not saying every case and scenario should be the same, but cases like that were pretty obvious, and there have been times in the past where I’d like to have done this, but the team just said: ‘Look, we won’t get anywhere because it has to be new and relevant.’

“The problem, I think, is that it was not as obvious as it could be, down to interpretation, but it was black and white, like there should never have been a penalty.

“I think it was so obvious the moment we presented the new evidence, that it was enough to open the discussion again and get it to correct itself.”

Sainz may have had his points erased, but his broader message is clear: until F1 moves to a system of professional, permanent referees, controversies over stewarding are unlikely to disappear from the grid any time soon.

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