Horner calls for clearer F1 rules, disagrees with Hamilton

The FIA and its stewarding team were put under the microscope after last season was littered with incidents involving Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen as the pair fought for the drivers’ championship.

In response to what happened in 2021, the FIA has taken action by replacing Michael Masi with two new race directors that alternate at each grand prix, while introducing a new Virtual Race Control Room - similar to VAR in football.

Speaking in an FIA press conference in Barcelona, Hamilton claimed that some stewards may have taken “more of a keen liking” to certain drivers.

Horner believes the F1 stewards have no ‘intended bias’ towards any driver on the grid.

“I think a lot of issues are to do with the regulations themselves because you’ve got very complicated regulations that then leave room for interpretation,” Horner explained. “I think the circuit limits one is an obvious one where in any other sport being over a white line and you’re out. And you have a situation like we have currently where some corners it’s OK, some corners it isn’t.

“I think for the fans, and even for the drivers and the teams, it’s confusing. So what you need is clear rules which are then easier to police. Now we’ve all been on the receiving end of stewards’ decisions that we’ve been unhappy about. I would agree with Toto that I don’t think there is an intended bias, I’m not aware of any stewards travelling with drivers to races.

“In Mohammed [Ben Sulayem], we have a new president that is looking to bolster the structure and to bring in the equivalent of the VAR which is something that certainly the top teams have available to them. I think giving a better infrastructure for clearer decisions with clearer regulations is something that should be strived for, but I certainly don’t think there was any bias from stewards during the last seasons.”

Toto Wolff agreed with his rival team boss that there’s no bias amongst the F1 stewards but called for consistency.

“I think we need professionalism in the stewards' room,” he added. “I don’t think there is a conscious bias to be honest, it’s intelligent people, but most important is whether we talk about race direction, the support they will have back at base, or the stewards, there needs to be a standard.

“This is what we deserve and this is what everybody expects. I think there are some very good people that we can build upon. Most important - and we all have talked about it last year - was the topic of inconsistency. There shouldn’t be a lot of room to interpret the rules. There shouldn’t be a lot of leniency depending on what a potential outcome could be, but the rules are the rules.

“As everything is being restructured, I have faith in Mohammed that going forward we will optimise all these structures.”