FIA makes F1 driving standards and penalty guidelines public

The FIA has made the Formula 1 driving standards and penalty guidelines available to the public in a move intended to improve transparency in decision making.

The stewards have worked to the advisory documents for multiple years but they had not been publicly released, leading to limited understanding of how each are applied to incidents. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has faced criticism at times during his tenure for failing to improve transparency within the governing body,

“FIA stewards perform a hugely complex task, not just in Formula 1 but across all of our championships, and they do this voluntarily, with great passion and commitment,” Ben Sulayem said. “That dedication is all too often met with extreme and wholly unwarranted criticism.

“To demonstrate the rigor with which they pursue their role, we are today publishing the Penalty and Driving Standards Guidelines that assist them with their decisions. This will give fans and members of the media a much deeper and more accurate insight into how decisions are made in Formula 1.

"The Penalty Guidelines have been a core tool for almost a decade while the Driving Standards Guidelines introduced in 2022 and constantly updated have brought the most important voices – those of the drivers – to the table to create a genuine reference for certain racing situations.”

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Grand Prix Drivers Association director George Russell is also quoted by the FIA, seeing the move as progress towards improved knowledge appreciation of how decisions are made.

“Greater transparency within the governance of our sport is an important issue and this is a useful step in that direction,” Russell said. “Hopefully it will be beneficial for the sport to give the media and fans a clearer understanding of the rules of engagement when we're racing on track, and to help them understand how the stewards reach their decisions.”

The release of the documents comes the day after Carlos Sainz Sr. ruled himself out of running for the presidency, calling the current circumstances “not ideal” but saying, “I still believe the organization needs important changes.” His Williams F1 driver son Carlos Sainz declined to discuss whether or not the publication felt like a politically motivated move.

“I think there's no secret that as drivers, we've felt over the last few years that there's been a bit of a lack of transparency and a lack of understanding with the main governance of the FIA,” the younger Sainz said. “And even though the intentions might have been good sometimes and the way FIA were trying to do things might have always been within the best spirit, I felt like drivers were always being a bit left out and sometimes our opinions were not listened to enough.

“There's sometimes been corrections and we felt like there's been a good reaction to those corrections, but clearly other times we haven't felt that way and we've made it very clear with our statements. But I can only see a way forward and getting better, because this year has certainly been frustrating for the most part. So let's see if it improves and maybe today's press release from the FIA is already a sign of the intentions of making everything a bit more clear.

“For me, as long as drivers and engineers and team members know that we can go racing, the reason why making it so public and making something out of it is maybe why you were asking that question, whether it was more politically related.

“But those steps, what is written in [the guidelines], you can tell we've been heard and listened to in some ways. Whether you make it public like that or not, I don't know the reason, but what is written in that press release about the guidelines, etc., is things that we have discussed with them.”

CLICK HERE to view the Penalty Guidelines

CLICK HERE to view the Driving Standard Guidelines