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AUSTIN, Texas — “What!?”
The high-pitched tone from George Russell upon learning he’d received a time penalty during the United States Grand Prix underlined his astonishment.
The Formula One race stewards had ruled that the Mercedes driver, charging through the field after starting in the pit lane, forced Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas off the track while overtaking him for 14th place at Turn 12. The wide, left-hand corner at the end of the back straight makes it a natural spot for side-by-side moves.
Russell passed Bottas on the inside of the corner but was deemed not to have left enough room at the exit, causing the Sauber to go off the track. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff made a rare appearance on the team radio to tell Russell it was a “total joke.”
The penalty was served at Russell’s pit stop, and he still went on to finish sixth, but Mercedes remained frustrated by the decision after the race — particularly in light of the stewards’ rulings on two separate incidents involving Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
F1’s race stewards serve as the referees of what happens on the race track. The race director, Niels Wittich, will refer any potential incidents for them to decide upon. On the stewards’ panel in Austin, this driver was Derek Warwick, who raced in F1 between 1981 and 1993. He was joined by Garry Connelly, an FIA World Motor Sport Council member; Loïc Bacquelaine, an F1 and F3 race steward who also works in law; and Dennis Dean, the national steward.
The stewards took no action over Verstappen’s lunge down the inside of Norris at the top of the hill off the start, a move that irked Norris at the time. But when Norris passed Verstappen off the track — with Verstappen also off the track trying to defend — with four laps to go, the stewards handed the McLaren driver a five-second time penalty, explaining that he’d breached the racing rules.
A big moment in the race and potentially the season 😮
Norris overtakes Verstappen but picks up a 5-second penalty for passing off track ✋#F1 #USGP pic.twitter.com/y1DFXGde0U
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 20, 2024
“Did Verstappen get a penalty for Turn 1?” Russell asked the Mercedes pit wall on the cool-down lap.
“No, he didn’t get a penalty,” Wolff replied. “And at the end, Lando got a penalty for being forced off and overtaking on the outside. I guess it’s a bit biased decision-making, but …”
Post-race, Wolff explained in a media session that he appreciated the stewards were “in a really difficult situation” to appease all the teams. But he felt a need to understand why they made certain decisions.
“We need to try and understand whether there’s certain patterns in stewarding decisions and whether that correlates to some of the situations,” Wolff said. “And everybody is racing hard, but for me, the decision against George was inexplicable.
“We’ve seen plenty of these situations in Turn 12. None of them were penalized until it (was) George, and obviously, there was another one afterwards. But (it wasn’t) the whole weekend, until (then) it was.”
Wolff said he did not want to comment on what happened between Verstappen and Norris, preferring to leave that to McLaren’s team bosses.
The stewards’ decisions on penalties like these are informed by the Driving Standard Guidelines, a set of racing rules defined by the FIA and provided to the drivers that outline etiquette such as leaving space or right to certain lines in a corner. They are not publicly available or part of the regulations but are enforced as a way to police on-track battles.
The fact these guidelines stated that Norris had lost his ‘right’ to Turn 12 when fighting Verstappen meant he received a penalty for overtaking off the circuit, which is a breach of the sporting regulations. After the race, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called it a “black and white” penalty.
Referring to the Turn 1 incident with Verstappen, Norris noted that greater leeway is often given to incidents that happen on the opening lap due to the proximity of the cars. “The fact that he committed so much speed that he again went off the track … I mean. I can’t just dive up the inside of someone, run off, and then keep the position in normal running,” Norris said. “But for some reason, it’s completely OK in Lap 1 on Turn 1. It’s a tough one. I don’t know.”
Norris and Verstappen raced each other hard on Sunday. (SIPA USA)
In the case of Russell and Bottas, because Russell was overtaking on the inside — not defending on the inside like Verstappen — the stewards referred to the guidelines, stating that “when overtaking on the inside, the driver must not force the other car off the track and must leave a fair and acceptable width for the car being overtaken.”
“By the letter of the law, my penalty was correct, but anybody who knows, anybody watching it, knows it was not correct,” Russell said after the race. “So I don’t really know how we move forward.
“I think we’d probably all want to see probably the same stewards all year long so that the drivers and the stewards can all be on the same page and that we can apply common sense when needed rather than having to really follow the letter of the law.”
Russell’s suggestion of a permanent set of stewards to provide greater consistency has regularly been raised by drivers. The counter-argument has been that using a rotating group of stewards ensures fairness and stops any accusations of bias, as was the case when F1 last operated a permanent system in the mid-2000s, meaning there has never been consensus on having a full-time panel.
“I think there’s great stewards,” Wolff said. “Honestly, great stewards that have either been in a racing car or have a non-biased view on situations, doing the best of their abilities for a job that is truly difficult. And we mustn’t put everybody in the same category.
“There’s a few inconsistencies, but I’m sure the (FIA) president is going to look at that.”
A factor that Norris questioned after the race was the timing of the decision to penalize him. Instead of taking a decision post-race, giving a chance for him and Verstappen to explain their sides of the battle, the stewards issued the ruling on the final lap. The penalty was taken during the race, so it could not be appealed.
“I am surprised that the stewards didn’t even feel the need to discuss with the drivers after the race,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. “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.
“So 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 there is a consensus among F1 teams that more can usually be done to improve stewarding and bring clarity to the racing rules, the challenge is applying those rules to situations that will always vary.
Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both referred to Oscar Piastri’s sprint race penalty – where he overtook Pierre Gasly and was ruled to have forced him off the track – as being one they thought was too harsh and would likely be discussed in the next drivers’ briefing in Mexico.
“I had a very similar incident yesterday (in the sprint) in Max’s position, and I was the one who got a penalty,” Piastri said on F1 TV after the race. “I’m sure we’ll have some questions about that.”
Or, a natural solution: “The easiest thing would be to put gravel there, and no one is going to go off.”
Top photos of Lando Norris and George Russell: Mark Sutton/Getty Images, Kym Illman/Getty Images
