A lot of people are scratching their heads about the FIA’s latest plan when it comes to race stewards. One of the most common complaints you will hear an F1 fan make is that the decisions made by the stewards are not consistent enough. For the past couple of years there has been a permanent steward, Tony Scott-Andrews, who has presided over every race alongside two others who are appointed on a race-by-race basis.

The presence of a permanent steward greatly improved the image of the process. Although there were still perceived inconsistencies, you couldn’t really lay the blame on anything in particular because of Tony Scott-Andrews, who most seem to agree did a good job.

Tony Scott-Andrews has decided not to continue in the role in 2008. So what would you do if you were the FIA? Would you continue the successful scheme of having permanent, independent stewards? Or will you hire a lackey?

Of course, you are not President of the FIA. Unfortunately, Max Mosley is. And so apparently his good buddy Alan Donnelly “will be involved in the process”, alongside three stewards who will be appointed on a race-by-race basis.

The three stewards will be “neutrals” in that they won’t come from the same country as anyone else involved in F1. Given that nationality shamefully played such a big role in the Hamilton / Alonso hoo-ha last year, this is understandable. But I can’t help but worry that it means the best people for the job will be overlooked.

The real worry though is that Alan Donnelly will apparently have a major influence in the decision-making process this year. According to GrandPrix.com:

If Donnelly takes up a role as the permanent F1 steward it is going to be very hard for him to establish any credibility as an independent. This in turn will reflect on the FIA and will not help improve the perception - whether true or not - that everything is controlled by Mosley.

The problem is that while Donnelly is clearly an intelligent and capable individual he has been a close ally of Mosley for eight years and before that worked with the FIA President as a member of the FIA-funded Automobile Users Group at the European Parliament. Today he is paid as an FIA consultant.

And Sidepodcast has revealed more:

His company Sovereign Strategy currently list Formula One Management Ltd as a client. It’s not hard to imagine the sport’s commercial interests being taken into consideration when looking at future rule infringements…

Of further interest a quick perusal through the Internet Archive, sees Sovereign Strategy at one time listing Ferrari as a previous client…

It’s not clear when the Italian manufacturer was removed from the client list (the archive displays the page as recently as June 2007), but one could speculate it was probably very recently. One also wonders whether the Scuderia have completely severed ties with Sovereign, and what bearing that may have on future ‘difficult’ decisions?

So the new permanent steward is not only an FIA / Max Mosley lackey, he is a Ferrari lackey as well! But this should come as no surprise given that FIA stands for Ferrari International Assistance and all.

In all seriousness, this is the last thing Formula 1 needs. At a time when so many people see Max Mosley as wielding too much power over F1 (to put it very politely indeed), to have a chum of Mosley’s become the new permanent steward is a recipe for disaster. Worse still, when so many people see the FIA as blatantly favouring Ferrari, is it really so wise to bring in a man whose company very recently listed Ferrari among its clients, one position below the FIA (Max Mosley’s organisation) and two above FOA (Bernie Ecclestone’s company)?

Max Mosley is truly in cloud cuckoo land. He must realise that this move is highly provocative. It will not be long before people start pointing fingers and suspecting bias.

The FIA has a major image problem among F1 fans as I recently pointed out. It is worrying enough that Max Mosley should install someone with such blatant Ferrari links in a position of such authority. What is even more worrying is that Mosley no longer even seems to be interested in pretending that the FIA are not just a bunch of Ferrari lackeys.

The sooner Mosley is replaced, the better. He is a rotten man who brings far too much politics into Formula 1 just because real politics was a no-go area due to his lineage. After the events of last year, more politics is the last thing F1 needs. But given this provocative appointment, it is obvious that Mosley doesn’t give a damn about this fact.

Despite what I have written about Lewis Hamilton’s actions behind the Safety Car over the past couple of days, I think the FIA’s decision was the correct one (it’s not often I say that!). Hamilton broke the rules, but it was not the sort of thing that merited a serious punishment. A slap on the wrists or a fine perhaps, but not points deductions or anything like that.

But I don’t like the implication from the biased British media that Hamilton was found “not guilty”. Remember that Sebastian Vettel’s punishment was taken away from him. There has only been one major piece of new evidence since Sunday, and we all know what that shows.

Of course, the British media is absolutely unbearable when it comes to this sort of thing. Mark Blundell was on ITV this morning criticising the fact that the stewards have never driven a Grand Prix car before, so they’re bound not to know what it’s like. That’s funny, I don’t remember him making such a criticism before, but there you go.

It’s also quite amusing because Blundell would know a lot about not being qualified for your job. He is, after all, a broadcaster who has a shockingly poor grasp of the English language.

Funny also how all of the other Grand Prix drivers seem to have been criticising Hamilton as well. Mark Blundell conveniently ignored this point. After being grilled by his colleagues, Hamilton said:

It was a bit disappointing because I knew a few of the drivers there and I didn’t expect them to say certain things.

Perhaps it’s time to admit when you are in the wrong.

In a way, the FIA couldn’t really have risked giving Hamilton a larger penalty because they would have been accused of manipulating the championship. It’s a sign of the sorry state of affairs that the FIA has found itself in. It is constantly being accused of bias one way or another and of manipulating this and that.

There are a few measures that I would like to see the FIA bring in to help prevent this.

1. When the race result is announced, it should not be changed

   I think there should be a time limit on when the race result can be changed. This is not to say that teams should not be able to appeal or that stewards should be unable to punish bad driving. But there should be a time limit for when a team can appeal a result. Something like six hours for instance. This does not even necessarily mean that the result has to be set in stone — just that we know what is going on. For a race result to come under question several days after the event is simply unacceptable.
   (This would be the case for drivers breaking the rules, but should be different in case a car is found to be illegal. But illegal parts on a car ought to be caught during scrutineering anyway.)

2. Stewards in one race should not rule on something that happened in another race

   For the second time this year, the stewards have found themselves ruling on something that happened in another race. This week the Chinese GP stewards had to discuss something which had already been discussed by the Japanese stewards. This is not on really. It is like a referee at a football match giving someone a yellow card for something a footballer did in his previous match.

3. Make penalties more sensible and predictable

   Whenever somebody is in trouble, you simply do not know what kind of punishment they are going to get. I once saw somebody referring to ‘The FIA Random Penalty Generator’ and it really is true. Disqualification? 10 place grid penalty? Drive through penalty? Start the race from the pits? Points docked? Seconds added to your time? We just don’t know which of these punishments will be used at a particular time. The stewards appear to award penalties in a completely arbitrary manner. It is no wonder people wonder about possible FIA bias. This must be sorted out, as a matter of priority.

What happened during the Japanese Grand Prix is actually a good case in point. Robert Kubica was given a drive-through penalty for being involved in an accident with Lewis Hamilton. Now, Kubica’s move was quite ambitious and he was unlikely to be able to pull it off, but did it really merit a drive-through? After all, other drivers crash into each other all the time and never get so much as a slap on the wrists. It’s kind of seen as part of the territory of motor racing.

You have to wonder when Fernando Alonso got whacked pretty hard by Sebastian Vettel. Unlike Hamilton, Alonso sustained quite bad damage to his car. Did Vettel get punished? Of course not — the FIA is biased against Alonso and in favour of Hamilton.

I know some people don’t believe me when I say that the FIA is biased in favour of Hamilton and that he is the successor to Michael Schumacher in this regard. To me, it is clear in the FIA’s eyes that the departure of Schumacher has left a void, and they have decided that Wonder Boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton shall fill that void. (I believe it is actually illegal to say ‘Lewis Hamilton’ without prefixing it with ‘Britain’s’.)

There is a resentment about the fact that Alonso was able to beat Michael Schumacher fair and square, when Schumacher had no excuses. Alonso is the only driver ever to have managed this (apart from possibly Mika Häkkinen, and he only did it once, not twice like Alonso did).

But don’t ask me if the F1 establishment favours Hamilton. Ask the F1 establishment itself.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the saviour of the sport…

“Lewis Hamilton has been a real breath of fresh air and has resurrected Formula One,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted commercial rights holder Ecclestone, who is not in Shanghai, as saying…

“We lost a big hero in Michael Schumacher but in Lewis we have another. But for him, I’m not sure where the sport would be heading.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

There is no doubt that the mess that the FIA and Formula 1 as a whole currently finds itself in is directly the fault of its power-mad President Max Mosley. A lot of people have been criticising the FIA’s bad management recently (not just the Hamilton investigation, but the bungled email to the teams about tyres at Fuji).

Max Mosley seems to do business on the basis of personal vendettas and the FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias rather than anything to do with notions of fairness or merit. This year’s witch-hunt against McLaren is a case in point — all to do with Max Mosley’s personal dislike of Ron Dennis.

Then there are the extraordinarily offensive comments he made about Jackie Stewart, somebody who had the cheek to criticise the FIA’s handling of the Stepneygate row. Doesn’t he know that people are not allowed to criticise Mosley?

Mosley said: “There’s one particular ex-driver who because he never stops talking, never has the chance to listen — so he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He said the FIA’s decision would not have worked in a civil court. He has no qualification to say that.

“Then he starts saying this is personal between me and Ron Dennis, at great length, because everything he does is at extreme length.

“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers.”

Mosley, presumably alluding to the tartan trousers and cap Stewart wears to races, added: “He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”

The comment about Jackie Stewart being a “certified halfwit” is seen as a reference to Stewart’s dyslexia. Damon Hill says all that needs to be said in his letter to Autosport magazine.

Update: Pitpass also has a good article on Max Mosley’s comments about Jackie Stewart.

With such contemptuous regard for his fellow inhabitants, one has to wonder what Mosley really feels about the diminutive former second-hand car salesman who not only facilitated his entry to Planet Paddock but has allowed him to enjoy the sort of totalitarian power trip his name prevented him enjoying in the real world.

You don’t often see professional media outlets referring to the fact that Max Mosley is the son of fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Some believe that Max Mosley really wanted a career in politics, but was advised against it due to who is father was. So rather than fucking up the country, Max Mosley decided to go into motor racing politics instead so that he could fuck up motor racing.