McLaren team principal Andrea Stella wants the FIA to look at the racing guidelines currently in place for Formula 1 and update them following the battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
Verstappen overtook Norris at the start of the race with a move that pushed both cars wide at Turn 1, and then defended third place late on in similar fashion at Turn 12 when Norris tried to overtake around the outside. While Stella saw a mitigating factor in that the stewards deemed the first move as an opening lap incident, he believes that the way the current driving standards guidelines are written still leave room for uncertainty.
“I think the ‘ahead at the apex’ in relation to the interpretation of the overtaking maneuver is not the relevant bit,” Stella said. “I think the defending car goes just straight at the apex. We checked the video multiple times. [Verstappen’s car] is just going straight, it’s just going off track as much as Lando is doing, just giving no chance for Lando to complete the maneuver.
“If I were a journalist, I would have done a bit of statistics. How many times Max has used this way for defending, both cars go off track? Both cars are gaining an advantage, if there’s an advantage gained.
“So for us this maneuver was at the least neutral, but when I saw that there was another investigation, I was pretty sure that was because Max pushed Lando off the track. And in fact we told Oscar [Piastri], ‘make sure you close five seconds on Max because there could be a position at stake’. So the interpretation of this situation between McLaren and the stewards is polar opposite.”
Norris was given a five-second time penalty on the final lap for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, demoting him back behind Verstappen and off the podium. Stella also felt the situation needed to be discussed between the stewards and the drivers involved given that the incident happened so late in the race, and between two drivers fighting for a championship.
“I am surprised that the stewards didn’t even feel the need to discuss with the drivers after the race,” he said. “It is an uncertain situation. Get the opinion of the drivers, get the time to assess the situation with the level of details that is required when the situation is not so clear.
“Where is the urgency to interfere with the result of a race with a championship course just because you have to make the decision in 60 seconds? It’s a question mark that I think the stewards should take constructively, positively. Is it really needed to make a decision so quickly and, in our opinion, so wrongly?”
While he knew as soon as the penalty was handed out that there was no realistic avenue to appeal it, Stella wants the FIA to analyze the incident.
“The decision cannot be appealed, so for us the matter is closed,” he said. “Myself, the drivers, the team, now we close this chapter. We hope that the FIA and the stewards will review the case, so that in the future we will have a better policy, a better stewardship of the racing. We now focus on the next race.”
