Sunday’s (Dec. 1) Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix was a mess from an officiating standpoint and calls into question the overall stability of the FIA.
It should be stressed that there is a process to how F1 is officiated. The race director is in charge of only the operations of a race. Their job is to call balls and strikes.
It falls on the stewards to investigate situations and assess potential penalties. They operate independently of the race director, who also operates independently of them.
On lap 30, double yellow flags were displayed in sector two, then taken away, then displayed and taken away again three more times. It was also noted that sector two had a slippery track surface.
A wing mirror came off one of the cars and landed right off of the racing line at the end of the pit straight.
LAP 31 / 57
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 1, 2024
McLaren tell Norris to push and close the gap to Verstappen – and he puts in the fastest lap of the race! 🟣#F1 #QatarGP pic.twitter.com/HpxkQ2xpIR
This is not a great place on the racetrack for that to happen, as cars enter turn 1 at speeds over 200 mph. Teams in the pit lane prepared for a potential safety car.
And yet, instead of calling that or even just a virtual safety car so that a marshall could run out and grab it, the race director had the green flag displayed on lap 32. Noting the sector as being all clear.
First, Valtteri Bottas hit the mirror. Thankfully, it did not seem to seriously damage his Sauber, but it did spread a lot of debris onto the track.
LAP 34 / 57
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 1, 2024
PUNCTURES FOR LEWIS HAMILTON AND CARLOS SAINZ! 💥
🟡 SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED 🟡#F1 #QatarGP pic.twitter.com/jj8xDVxcm9
This was evidenced a lap later, when Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz both got punctures from the debris. Both were able to make it to the pit lane, but brought out a Safety Car, meaning the debris could finally be cleared.
During the double yellow flag fiasco, Lando Norris, in second place, did not slow down at all. This warranted a penalty that Norris recieved on lap 44.
A race-defining moment for Lando Norris 👀
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 1, 2024
A stop/go penalty for failing to slow under yellow flags ended his chance of victory today ❌#F1 #QatarGP pic.twitter.com/MieWsKU215
What penalty did the stewards hand down? A 10-second stop-and-go penalty for failing to slow under yellow flags.
It has been a very long time since anybody had received a stop-and-go. When Kevin Magnussen was cited for blocking at Saudi Arabia in the second race of the season, he wasn’t given one and there was a lot of discourse coming out of that race that he should have been given one.
But now Norris gets it instead?
And to top it off, Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, another rare penalty, on lap 47.
Both Norris and Hamilton had obvious slam-dunk penalties there. But it’s very clear that the severity of both penalties was an overstep.
“We did check whether Lando had slowed down or not,” McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella said in the F1 TV Post-Race Show. “But, in fact, he stays flat out. We have to say that Lando gets the yellow flag displayed as soon as he enters the sector.
“But that is no justification, that is the responsibility of the driver, to recognize you are in a yellow flag sector and to slow down accordingly.
“We have to say it is peculiar that the yellow flag was deployed in that sector, and then it was removed. But the circumstances stayed the same, the debris was there. That was a little unfortunate.
“And then when it comes to the severity of the penalty, I think [it] misses any sense of proportion between the actual level of risk and the penalty that was inflicted. And it misses any sense of specificity, can we look at the case, analyze the case, assess the level of danger, and then deliver a penalty that is proportionate to the infringement?
“To me, it looks like a book with some dust on top was opened, checked what happened in this case, and applied the penalty. But this is a pain for racing.”
This was a wacky race with a lot of investigations. And that’s not on the stewards. But the timing was also very confusing for this particular weekend.
As an example, George Russell was given a penalty for a safety car infringement during the cooldown lap. The last safety car went in on lap 42, meaning it took 15 laps for the stewards to note, investigate and hand down the penalty.
There was also some controversy this weekend, as Max Verstappen won the pole position but received a one-spot grid penalty for blocking Russell on both drivers’ warm-up laps. A one-place penalty has only happened twice in the last decade and never for this infringement.
Sergio Perez, who retired from the race after spinning out on lap 39, was noted for dangerous driving as the podium interviews were ongoing. The stewards then noted that the incident would be investigated after the race, which had ended about 5 minutes earlier.
These types of races happen at least once or twice a year in F1, but this is not happening in a vacuum. There has been a lot of drama at the FIA both internally and between them and the drivers in the past few months.
Then F1 Race Director Niles Wittich was fired following the Brazilian Grand Prix, after some very questionable decisions were made there regarding Safety Car calls. The stewards — who are three individuals that change from race to race — have been handing out fines for drivers who have sworn in interviews.
The drivers, through the Grand Prix Driver’s Association, have put out statements decrying a lot of these actions.
The GPDA has issued a public statement on the ongoing controversy over swearing in #F1, as it says FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem should also consider his own tone. pic.twitter.com/WZeoUBGFSd
— Jon Noble (@NobleF1) November 7, 2024
FIA President Mohamed Ben Sulayem responded earlier on Sunday prior to the race that “it’s none of their business” how the FIA has been running.
It is quite clear that even after next Sunday’s (Dec. 8) race at Abu Dhabi, this situation will not be going away and will likely fester through the winter.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.
It’s like NA$CAR where either the debris is figment or they are from
Missouri and the one screwed either way is the drivers.