Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said Formula 1 needs a time limit for post-race stewarding decisions after several Miami Grand Prix investigations were still being resolved around two and a half hours after the chequered flag.
Speaking on The Red Flags Podcast, Steiner said the process had dragged on so long that he was already travelling home while penalties were still being issued. “I was sitting in the airplane already going back home when I heard that there was still penalties going around,” he said. “We need to decide it after the race, but I think there needs to be a time limit. If you don't know, guess what? Don't give a penalty.”
His criticism followed a backlog of Miami inquiries involving Max Verstappen and George Russell, Verstappen’s alleged pit-exit white-line infringement, Charles Leclerc’s final-lap contact with Russell, and two separate Leclerc investigations for leaving the track multiple times and for driving a car deemed unsafe.
Most of those cases did not alter the result, but the delayed rulings still had consequences. Verstappen was given a five-second penalty that did not change his finishing position, while Leclerc received a drive-through converted into a 20-second penalty that dropped him to eighth in the final classification.
Steiner’s main complaint was that the stewards should be spending the race working through incidents rather than simply following the action. “What are they doing during the race? Because I think the stewards are not there to watch the race. They're there to take decisions on things which went wrong,” he said.
He argued that officials should be directed to focus on the footage and reach decisions as they go. “They should shut the race down and tell the stewards, analyse this, process this scene, what happened here, work on it, make a decision and move on, not watch.”
Steiner pointed to the Verstappen white-line case as the clearest example of a decision that should not have taken so long. He said the footage makes that kind of infringement objective rather than open to prolonged debate. “Crossing a white line, what you want to litigate? Either it is on or off,” Steiner said, adding that teams would still have the chance to protest afterward.
For Steiner, that is exactly why the FIA should impose a hard deadline on post-race verdicts. On a case like the pit-exit line, he argued, the evidence does not change with time. “Before, after, in three days, it will be the same picture.”