Stoddie Straight: Totally unacceptable stewarding; Reliability only Red Bull

In his post-race column for RacingNews365.com, former Formula 1 team principal Paul Stoddart doesn’t hold back in his assessment of the handling of Fernando Alonso’s time penalty, and believes more should be done to prevent the Formula 1 being subjected to “joke” decisions.

FIA needs to investigate itself after Alonso penalty debacle

The FIA [Stewards] wants to take a real, seriously hard look at itself. There are 100 million people watching that thing worldwide, and not one of them gives a s**t about the FIA’s stupid rules applied in the extreme.

First of all, let’s go back to the start. Where that Aston Martin was, a couple of inches to the left of the white line? Come on, guys. Is there a racing advantage to be had by doing that? No. Did Fernando get anything out of that? No. Then onto when the penalty was served, the rules haven’t changed since the days I was there, the rules state you can’t work on the car, it doesn’t mean you can’t be there! You’re allowed to be there. I mean, what are we doing? Are we racing, or are we having a laugh here? It’s absolutely outrageous.

If the FIA is having a bad day, they’re having a really bad day. I don’t think I have ever, ever, in 30 years seen a Safety Car put out when it wasn’t necessary like that one. What a joke. Stroll literally gifted it to the marshals. It could have been handled under double yellows; it could have been handled under virtual safety. What on earth would they need to do that for? It influences the outcome of the race.

In FIA Race Control, they don’t just rely on the onboards, they have footage that none of us have ever seen, and I do not believe that they did not know where that car was. I just simply don’t believe it. I’ve been behind the scenes, I’ve sat in that studio and I’ve seen what visibility they have. I’m sorry, I don’t accept it. If it wasn’t visible, what was the harm in waiting 30 seconds longer until they could actually see the car when the cameras had picked it up?

Towards the end of the race, when it was discussed that there might be a second penalty, it didn’t come up on the screen as ‘under investigation’, they reacted to the TV commentary that said, ‘I thought that jack was touching the back of that car’. I don’t want to see this sport that I love to go down this stupid road again of having the FIA politics. We had all that 10 and 20 years ago, we’ve seen championships taken away, we’ve seen personal punishments dished out.

I thought when [Max] Mosley left all of that was all over. [Jean] Todt could be a little bit political, but he was a bit better. I really hoped, I really hoped that we had put all of this behind us, and now, clearly, we haven’t. If the FIA [Stewards] wants to do something sensible, it needs to investigate itself for bringing the sport into disrepute. A lot of other people feel the same way.

What really, really hurts is the…