Nico Hulkenberg has called on F1 stewards to rethink how they hand out penalties after Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen was banned from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
For a Turn 4 incident at the Italian GP involving Pierre Gasly, Magnussen was handed two penalty points and a 10-second time penalty, that triggered a race ban after reaching 12 penalty points in a 12-month period.
He is the first F1 driver banned under the system since it was introduced in 2014, and will be replaced in Baku by 2025 Haas driver Oliver Bearman.
Gasly himself was prepared to defend Magnussen to the stewards at Monza over the move from which both drivers were able to continue, with Hulkenberg feeling the iron-fisted approach towards contact by stewards needs to be re-considered.
"I didn't see two penalty points in that, and a 10-second penalty is very harsh in my opinion, and most drivers feel the same way about that," Hulkenberg told media including RacingNews365 of Magnussen's penalty.
"I had a case with Fernando [Alonso] in the Austria sprint race where I tried to make a move into Turn 3, locked up, went wide and he had to go off the track, but that is racing. To overtake, we have to leave our comfort zone, and take some risks and then this kind of thing happens sometimes.
"In my case with Fernando, and also with Pierre, both drivers said: 'It's nothing' so it seems that whenever there is a little bit of contact, the stewards want to get involved, they want to have a consequence for it.
"The drivers feel that it isn't really necessary for every contact so maybe the penalty guidelines need to be reviewed and changed because we need to be able to race and it is just difficult otherwise.
"It will be boring and dull as we can't race anymore, we'll just get penalised all the time, but I am sure it will come up in the driver's meeting, and there will be talks with [race director] Niels [Wittich]."
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Keeping the penalty points
Hulkenberg stopped short of calling for doing away with the penalty point system entirely, believing it did provide a safety net against "extreme" situations.
"It is for extreme cases, and if drivers do something silly or dangerous, it is good to keep us under control and we know there is a consequence if we do something stupid or silly, so I think it should stay in place," he said.
"Monza is the most recent one, it is fresh in our memory, but [Magnussen's penalty points] didn't start from zero this year.
"It is an accumulation of things, but it is good to have it in place for extreme cases, but with all these little racing incidents, it is tricky and a fine line."
Also interesting:
In the latest episode of the RacingNews365 podcast, Ian, Sam and Nick look ahead to this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Red Bull's serious issues are discussed, as is Ferrari's chances in the title fight and Adrian Newey's move to Aston Martin.
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Patrick Chapman
F1 stewards are a backwards thinking bunch. Nothing gets sorted until after it happens. And then it takes months to take effect.
Paul Woodthorpe
Half the rules need scrapped. They micromanage every aspect of driving and a lot are not warranted. With regards Magnusson I think he should be banned simply because the rules state it for now, and even if we disagree, it is unfair on other drivers if they let him off when the rules apply to everyone. But next season they should rethink the rules completely. Penalty points should ONLY be awarded if you cause a crash that takes a competitor out of an event and you are deemed at fault for it because there were other avoiding options available to you. For minor penalties I think timed penalties are adequate and do not require points. Points should be for dangerous events that take out competitors from the event. I would also scrap the points reset after a ban. If you reach a ban, you shouldn't then be given freedom to crash 3 or 4 more times before the next ban, you should be banned every time you get points when you are at 12 point maximum, and only avoid a ban when enough points have expired to bring you back under the 12 point limit.
Patrick Chapman
What you say make good overall sense when looking at the current rules. My point is that the FIA should have looked at this problem 18 month ago. Many many people realized then that you could get a ban for a minor infringement and that was not what the rule was intended for in the strict sense. It was originally intended to cover dangerous incidents but the wording was too generalized and that is why we are where we are today.
BeniHana
It is funny to me that these type of articles get written and the fans that are so called experts tell us what they think is broken. Being a steward is a tough job that is subjective and will always be controversial in one way or another. Can it be improved? Absolutely and I do believe they will.
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