Masi dismisses Alonso’s criticism of F1 steward bias

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Alonso has been unhappy with the consistency of some of the race control decisions this season, especially with respect to drivers leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

He remained angry after McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo passed him off track in Austria and was also puzzled when Lando Norris got away with just a reprimand after crossing the pit lane in the Grand Prix of Russia, who is also subject to a time penalty.

After Sochi, the Alpine rider said: “There are different rules for different people, or different, let’s say, discussions the following week for different people.

“Let’s see, the next one who crosses the white line at the entrance of the pits, let’s see what nationality he is and what penalty he will get.”

When Alonso’s comments were submitted to race director Masi, he said the Spaniard was entitled to his opinion, but denied the existence of any bias among the stewards.

“I’m not even committing to that side,” Masi said. “Every driver has the right to their opinions and comments, whether it’s internal or in the media, and that’s great.

“The rules are applied the same for everyone. We judge every incident, looking at the actual incident and what is going on.”

Michael Masi, race director

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Asked by Autosport if Alonso’s comments added any pressure to the commissioners, Masi denied that was the case.

“No, not at all,” he replied. “We’re very lucky to have a really good group of Stewards throughout the year. And no, I can tell you that doesn’t put any extra pressure on them.

Alonso was not the only driver to question the consistency with which the rules are applied, and in Turkey, the Stewards drew more criticism when Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri was hit with a five-second penalty after having hit Alonso early in what seemed like a typical round. 1 racing incident.

Nonetheless, Masi – who also explained why Gasly was penalized – is confident that the current steward rotation system is robust.

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“Absolutely. As we said before, the stewards are an independent judiciary to review anything, and that’s why they are independent to review it on that basis. They review everything, on a case-by-case basis.” , he explained.

“Yeah, you can kind of compare different types of incidents, let’s call it, but they’re there to look at each case with all the information and data they have, and then ultimately make their decision.

“Each team has the right to talk about consistency and so on, but we have a general route of parameters, they are all keenly aware of where they are.

“If there are things that are not going well, we discuss them openly. And if we need to tweak them, we tweak them.”

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