Carlos Sainz proposes TV pundits idea in FIA incident review shake-up

Carlos Sainz has proposed an idea to shake-up how the FIA stewards review incidents, having seen how various TV broadcasters analyse incidents to their viewers. 

A meeting between all 20 F1 drivers and the FIA took place ahead of this weekend's Qatar Grand Prix following the conclusion of media day at the Lusail International Circuit. 

The meeting was organised for an in-depth review of the driving standards guidelines, which has received criticism across the season from the field. 

Sainz, who replaced Sebastian Vettel as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GDPA), wants to see the guidelines removed going forwards but has raised a potential alternative. 

The Williams driver proposed the idea of using the likes of ex-F1 drivers Karun Chandhok, Jolyon Palmer and Anthony Davidson to analyse each incident, just like they do for Sky F1 and the official F1 world feed. 

In Sainz's eyes, the analysis and verdict often reached by the former drivers is very accurate, and something he would like to see the FIA take on board.

Discussing if he believes F1 needs racing guidelines, Sainz told select media including RacingNews365: "I’m going to give you as honest an answer as possible. Recently, after races, I’ve seen some analysis done on quite a lot of the incidents — some of them by Karun Chandhok, some by Jolyon Palmer, some by Anthony Davidson. 

"Every time I see the analysis that they do, and the verdicts 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 the right person — or if it’s actually just a racing incident.

"My ideal future would be no guidelines, and people who are able to judge these incidents in the same way as the three people I’ve just mentioned do after races. 

"Again, this is just my opinion, but I’m quite impressed by the job some of the broadcasters do after a race, with this in-depth analysis of each incident and how they apply blame, or no blame, in certain scenarios. I think that level of analysis, and the level of [sharpness] if you want to call it that, is very high.

"It probably doesn’t mean we would agree 100 percent with these three people, the ex-drivers, but I think they are, a lot of the time, very close — let’s say 90 percent correct. And if I had to look at Formula 1 in the future and the sporting level, that is more or less the level I would appreciate."

Does the FIA need a new position?

The majority of drivers who feature on the stewarding panel across the season have been retired for several seasons, raising the question if more recently retired drivers are needed. 

Sainz does not entirely agree with this, but again expressed how impressed he often is by Chandhok's Palmer's and Davidson's analysis of incidents.

Asked by RacingNews365 if the stewarding panel needs more recently retired drivers, Sainz explained: "Well, I think I need to be very careful with you. I do think there’s older generation people who do a very good job with the stewarding. I don’t want to name any names or be personal with anyone, but there are people out there doing a very decent job.

"The only thing I’ll say — and I insist I don’t want to get into too much analysis here — is that when I hear these people, these ex-racing drivers, doing analysis, they speak a lot of sense. When I read [what they say], and I think about having two or three of these people judging our racing incidents or penalties, I feel that most of the time they wouldn’t even need guidelines. 

"They would be very honest and very accurate in the conclusions we’d need them to take. So I put it out there as an idea.

"Obviously, nowadays, with 24 races, you’d need a fixed salary; you’d need the job to be relatively important, because it takes a lot of time out of your life. So we need to look at how to organise that. But again, I don’t want to go into too much detail here.

"I just want to say that when I take time to look back at those incidents — maybe two days later, when I’m home and they pop up on social media — and I see these people making the analysis, I think exactly the same way. And I think most drivers see it in a very similar way. So it’s just an idea."