[Richard C]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

A big part of the problem is that whilst the stewards have made noises about letting them race, when an incident is referred to them, they look at it in comparison to previous incidents and the penalties awarded at that time.

They have to decide are they going to compare with the past incidents and penalties in which case they have to judge with the same mindset as the stewards of the incident they are comparing,

Or are they looking at it with with a different mindset in which case the outcome and penalties of previous events can't be used as a yardstick.

I have avoided this thread out of fear it would just be another rehash of the recent Vettel vs. Hamilton incident (nothing wrong with that topic, but I am just personally done with it). And to a degree it is, with the same participants arguing the same points as in the race thread. But the above question is a good one.

I started to type a reply and then realized that I was not sure of the history of the recent effort to reduce driver penalties and specifically who is expected to solve this problem. That my reply hinged upon the answers to that question.

I spent a tiny bit of time looking into this and I found some articles that talked about this in 2017. That there was a change to the sporting regulations at that time. Article 38 deals with incidents during the race. Specifically what the Stewards are expected to do. The pertinent section is Article 38.2 (a) which says...

It shall be at the discretion of the stewards to decide if any driver involved in an Incident should be penalised.

Unless it is clear to the stewards that a driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for an Incident no penalty will be imposed.

Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I believe the first part was changed (I didn't dig up pre 2017 rules to see exactly what changed) to give the stewards broad powers to just not do anything if they want. Basically, they didn't have to be total slaves to the verbiage of the rules. That common sense and some wiggle room can officially exist.

I think this puts a HUGE weight upon the stewards given the question ScotsBrutesFan asks. Without their being some level of side communications going on as to what exactly should change, it seems to be wholly up to the stewards to decide how the sport should "change" in this area.

Now, we know that there is a slew of unwritten rules that governs the sport. In the US (and this may happen worldwide), we generally may operate off of "laws", but typically additional "regulations" may be written based upon the laws to really provide practical details on how things work. I think F1 has the "laws" in the form of the sporting and technical regulations and my "regulations" from my example above (how they are actually applied) are mostly unwritten.

My favorite example is that for the most part, many rules just don't apply for the first corner of the first lap. Nothing exists in the sporting regulations for this, but it's well known. So there may be conversations happening between various parties (drivers, teams, race director, stewards) to define the new ways things will be handled. We all like the "clarify" word for this. Which is the writing (and rewriting) of the unwritten rules.

So I expect that some scenarios have been discussed in advance and everyone knows if X happens, that while Y would be the prior action by the stewards, that Z might be the new action by the stewards. But there also exists new scenarios that are not discussed in advance. So when that happens (and this is to ScotsBrutesFan's question)... We can only guess as to what the strategy is used by the stewards. They might...

1. Fully fall back upon prior precedents and not try to push forward new thinking.
2. Look at prior precedents and come up with a new precedent on the fly.

I suspect that the answer is more like #1 because doing #2 could get it wrong and set an incorrect precedent. Then if the topic blows up (i.e. many feel that path #1 is not to the new "spirit"), it gets discussed and "clarified" if required for the next time. I wonder if the recent incident resulted in this or not. We may never know unless someone is a real insider.

Now the last bit of the regulation I quote above might be viewed by some as something that kills the flexibility given to the stewards. That is the part that says...

Unless it is clear to the stewards that a driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for an Incident no penalty will be imposed

I suspect... that is somewhat of an attempt to prevent the concept of "Jury Nullification". If you don't know the concept, you can look it up, but basically it is when you put a decision in the hands of the jury and they just don't care what the law says, but their decision is binding. For example... Husband beats wife for years and years. One night she just just shoots him dead in his sleep. It is clearly "murder" by the legal definition. The Jury however may feel... "You know what... he just needed killin'" and votes not guilty and most everyone is happy with the solution even if it wasn't technically the correct answer.

I think the regulation change above tries to give them broad powers, but also tries to prevent them from going way off course.

Richard