23/08/2019
NEWS STORY
Very much one of the old school, elbows out, style of racing, 1980 world champion, Alan Jones, admits to having serious doubts as to whether he can continue as a race steward.
The Australian, who began his F1 career in a privately entered Hesketh, and who subsequently drove for Hill, Surtees, Shadow, Williams, Arrows and Haas, admits to being "disillusioned" with the current penalty system.
"At the end of the day I'm a little bit, shall we say, disillusioned with Formula 1 at the moment," he tells Speedcafe.com, "to the extent where I'm seriously thinking of relinquishing my stewardship.
"I wholeheartedly disagree with a lot of the ways or the directions that they're going," he adds, "and obviously you can't shit-can them or criticise them if you're an employee of them, so if I'm an FIA steward, I can hardly turn around and get stuck into them."
The Australian's comments come at a time race stewards have made a number of controversial decisions which have led to claims of inconsistency and bias.
Jones claims that stewards are prevented from using their own judgement, which kind of defeats the purpose when it comes to driver stewards.
"They hand out a book, which is the steward's book, and page five, paragraph three, line four says that if the battery lead falls off, this is the penalty that will be handed out," says the Australian.
"The steward should be there to have a certain amount of discretion, and at the end of the day, why have an ex-driver in the steward's room if you can't say to them, 'No, I honestly believe that was a racing accident', or whatever? I don't think that it should all be down to a manual."
Jones also questions why penalties are handed to drivers for problems that are a team issue.
"If you have a mechanical problem, I think the manufacturer should be the one that suffers and is penalised," he says. "Don't forget they derive a lot of their money from the share of the TV stake, and what percentage of that share is dependent on how many points they've got in the championship.
"So if they've got points taken away from them for infringing the silly mechanical rules, well so be it. They're the ones who suffer, not the driver, and more importantly, not the spectator who's paid to go and see the race."
Unsurprisingly, Jones' services as a steward have not been called upon since early 2018, the FIA preferring to draw from a pool of driver stewards that includes Emanuele Pirro, who was on duty at this year's controversial Canadian Grand Prix, Danny Sullivan, Derek Daly, Tom Kristensen, Mika Salo, and Derek Warwick.