2023 Saudi Arabian GP Heroes and Zeroes

[Andy B]

I think you will find that all teams report all teams to the stewards especially if it means making up places!

[cosworth151]

The FIA's real problem is that they use the marshall's job as a bonus prize for the locals instead of getting full time professionals for the job.

They couldn't do that, Lonny. Using professionals means that they would have to be paid. The local marshals are volunteers.

And we all know that the poor, impoverished FIA and Liberty couldn't afford that. 

[Alianora La Canta]

Did the pit at RB try and give the win to Max when they
told Sergio to slow down while Max had no intention. Maybe
that's why Jos had a sour look on his face

Yes, I think they did. Good on Checo for noting the figures didn't add up and then carrying on regardless (thus thwarting the attempt)!

I will ask if taking a 5-second penalty is not allowed during a Safety Car episode, then wouldn't all the teams know about this?
It appears they do not, or at least Aston Martin does not.

Until this year, taking penalties under the Safety Car was banned, even if the pit lane was open. (This is why Jules Bianchi's Monaco 2014 finish was a P9 and not a P8 - the original attempt to serve the penalty was considered invalid because it was under a Safety Car, thus generated a fresh penalty so the team could "try again").

This year, taking penalties under the Safety Car got permitted (with a "for the avoidance of doubt" added as a preface to boot!) "Better" still, the same rule now says teams *must* take them at the next stop, so you can't even delay until after the Safety Car goes back in if you need to pit for some other reason (e.g. tyre strategy). Aston Martin clearly has some staff who noticed the helpful tag (which I did not manage in the race). However, the FIA wrote the regulation change and apparently forgot.

Max is the "bad guy" because he didn't follow team orders in Brazil 2022 when they went against him and there was no competitive reason to not follow the orders, but nonetheless expects to benefit from them in Saudi Arabia 2023. The real bad guy is Red Bull for mismanagement, obviously.

I think you will find that all teams report all teams to the stewards especially if it means making up places!

Not if they think Race Control will do it for them, because Race Control reporting is free and team reporting costs the team that does the report $2000 (even if their complaint is upheld).

The FIA's real problem is that they use the marshall's job as a bonus prize for the locals instead of getting full time professionals for the job.

They couldn't do that, Lonny. Using professionals means that they would have to be paid. The local marshals are volunteers.

And we all know that the poor, impoverished FIA and Liberty couldn't afford that. 

Seriously, the FIA has only just got out of a debt hole of $10 million that it entered towards the end of the Todt era. Paying the marshals at British minimum wage (£9.10 per hour) would cost £436.80 per marshal, per weekend (it's 4 days of about 12 hours each). Each marshal post is required to have at least 3 marshals and there has to be a post at least every 200 metres. At the minimum permitted track length of 3.2 km, that's 16 posts and 48 marshals. Add an extra 20 marshals required for pit lane/scrutineering duties (1 per car) and the additional requirement to pay about 20 "more senior" unpaid officials (including stewards and people who co-ordinate groups of marshals) who do other functions which are currently unsalaried. (Note that the FIA does pay to fly about 12 staff for senior roles which traditionally aren't volunteer roles in a F1 context, like the travelling medical contingent, and some roles like marshal trainer may be paid depending on what's in the training that weekend).

88 officials is a new expense of £38,438.40 per race. For 23 races, that's £884,084.20 .

Note that I have assumed zero travel expenses (in practise, this is the one part the FIA, via its National Sporting Authorities, might help with at the moment, though the NSAs mostly reserve that for local events that might otherwise have to cancel races due to insufficient marshal availability), no hotel costs, no kit or training fees (both of which definitely apply even if the other expenses don't, since there are race-specific tabards and the FIA requires F1 marshals to have a day of additional training before the weekend starts) and no tax/legal consequences to the FIA suddenly becoming an employer in about 20 countries where it currently isn't considered one. I'm assuming no tracks have difficult corners, blind spots or any other reason why more than 3 marshals would be needed in a 200-metre space. Also that all tracks above the minimum limit will immediately be curtailed to 3.2 km. I've also assumed the "more senior" officials are OK with earning the same as the people they traditionally considered in less senior positions (and, in some cases, manage). It is assumed that non-F1 marshals will remain unpaid even when sharing a weekend schedule with F1. Finally, I've assumed that Australia will go down to 3 days of on-track events, which is probably the least plausible part of these calculations.

[lkjohnson1950]

I have failed to make myself clear, probably by using the wrong term. The track marshals generally do an excellent job. I know from ancient experience they are required to attend training sessions. I was talking about the idiots who sit in race control and hand out penalties. They should be experienced professionals capable of making a reasonably quick decision and being consistent from race to race.

[Alianora La Canta]

I have failed to make myself clear, probably by using the wrong term. The track marshals generally do an excellent job. I know from ancient experience they are required to attend training sessions. I was talking about the idiots who sit in race control and hand out penalties. They should be experienced professionals capable of making a reasonably quick decision and being consistent from race to race.

Race Control is, worryingly, an experienced professional. He's one of the dozen-or-so people who is paid by the FIA to do officiating, he's paid because of his previous work in the same role in the DTM and... ...ah, those last two points are admittedly stumpers.

But the consistent race controller that was there for half of last year decided he'd had enough of F1 and went back to WEC, so the FIA wasn't exactly overburdened with options It does, however, suggests that the amateurs are doing a better job with their part of the duty than the paid professionals...

[John S]

I have failed to make myself clear, probably by using the wrong term. The track marshals generally do an excellent job. I know from ancient experience they are required to attend training sessions. I was talking about the idiots who sit in race control and hand out penalties. They should be experienced professionals capable of making a reasonably quick decision and being consistent from race to race.

Race Control is, worryingly, an experienced professional. He's one of the dozen-or-so people who is paid by the FIA to do officiating, he's paid because of his previous work in the same role in the DTM and... ...ah, those last two points are admittedly stumpers.

But the consistent race controller that was there for half of last year decided he'd had enough of F1 and went back to WEC, so the FIA wasn't exactly overburdened with options It does, however, suggests that the amateurs are doing a better job with their part of the duty than the paid professionals...

Point of order:- Race Control do not hand out any penalties, that's the Stewards....... And unless I'm very much mistaken the Stewards work on an expenses only basis not a salary.

Not sure it would improve the system if they moved to salaried/professional Stewards, might be slightly more consistant but lock in prejudice, nitpicking & excessive pedantry instead with a permanent crew. 

[Alianora La Canta]

I have failed to make myself clear, probably by using the wrong term. The track marshals generally do an excellent job. I know from ancient experience they are required to attend training sessions. I was talking about the idiots who sit in race control and hand out penalties. They should be experienced professionals capable of making a reasonably quick decision and being consistent from race to race.

Race Control is, worryingly, an experienced professional. He's one of the dozen-or-so people who is paid by the FIA to do officiating, he's paid because of his previous work in the same role in the DTM and... ...ah, those last two points are admittedly stumpers.

But the consistent race controller that was there for half of last year decided he'd had enough of F1 and went back to WEC, so the FIA wasn't exactly overburdened with options It does, however, suggests that the amateurs are doing a better job with their part of the duty than the paid professionals...

Point of order:- Race Control do not hand out any penalties, that's the Stewards....... And unless I'm very much mistaken the Stewards work on an expenses only basis not a salary.

Not sure it would improve the system if they moved to salaried/professional Stewards, might be slightly more consistant but lock in prejudice, nitpicking & excessive pedantry instead with a permanent crew.

The stewards work to whatever the race organiser provides (customarily but not necessarily expenses-only). The FIA tried having a permanent paid steward in 2007/2008, discovered it made things more biased without necessarily increasing consistency (better results were obtained by the simple expedient of writing down previously-issued penalties in that season and the previous one), and scrapped the idea of a permanent steward.

Race Control decides who can be issued a penalty to a certain extent, because the stewards can't rule on anyone Race Control decides should not be referred. The race controller has also typically been in charge of things like rules clarifications within a given weekend and informing (or not informing) drivers about how regulations will be interpreted. In these ways, Race Control can and frequently does influence who gets penalties, even if no bias is intended. (And, well, I'm having doubts about this). They also get to partially influence how possible the stewards' job is (it's always going to be various degrees of impossible due to bad regulations, but Race Control conduct can make it worse - and has done on several notable occasions in the last few years).

Besides, only one F1 steward is allowed to be local. The others are selected from the pool of available qualified stewards to all be different nationalities from the local steward (and each other).