“No Consistency in…”: Weeks After Reflecting on Lewis Hamilton’s Nightmare Events, Guenther Steiner Angrily Demands for a “Professional” Revamp in F1

Guenther Steiner is conceivably one of the primary characters who, due to his straightforward demeanor and image of a tough team leader, may have caught the attention of followers across the world. The man has never shied away from speaking his mind, and in order to reach the pinnacle of his character, he wrote down what he had to express in a book titled “Driving to Survive.” After Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton endured one of the most arduous nights in Abu Dhabi in 2021, the demands for “professional” revamping of sports have recently reached new heights. And this time it’s Guenther Steiner who wants the overhaul, so what exactly is it that Steiner wants to change? Let’s have a look.

Due to a severe issue with race direction, the Formula 1 race at the Monaco Grand Prix may have left the sports fans bewildered once more. The dynamic peaked when Lewis Hamilton experienced a tragic event in the 2021 final race. Max Verstappen became the Formula 1 champion at that time since Michael Masi made a poor choice. The F1 community highly scrutinized Masi’s improper application of the Safety Car regulations.

Guenther Steiner described this entire scenario in his book and, according to him, even if the evening was entertaining, the results left a bad taste in the mouth of Toto Wolff. He stated, “At the time it didn’t stack up to me, but at the same time I didn’t know all the facts. It was very entertaining, though. Poor Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team principal] almost had a f***ing heart attack!” And now that a recent incident at the Monaco Grand Prix has negatively impacted a driver from his own squad, the head of the Haas team has angrily demanded an overhaul. So what happened at the Monaco racetrack?

For colliding with American rookie Logan Sargeant on the first lap, Nico Hulkenberg received a five-second time penalty. Steiner, though, was certain that there had been no touch. Not only that, but the German driver also had two points taken off his license since he wasn’t even given the customary first-lap benefit of the doubt when he passed the Williams driver by diving into Mirabeau. Hulkenberg was later found – according to a ruling by the stewards – to be “unable to control the car and wasn’t forced there by any other car.”

Steiner hasn’t taken the unexpected punishment well and has grown increasingly agitated. He made a professional overhaul of the referee’s demands as a result of this. As per Formula Passion, he stated, “I think there are very fickle decisions. You are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. We need a different system for stewards.” [Translated via Google]

While adding further, he said,” There are always discussions, because there is no consistency in the decisions. This is ridiculous. I don’t want to blame any person specifically, but for them this isn’t even a job. In a job, you can get fired because you get paid. If you do a bad job, you get fired. You can’t do it here, because they don’t get paid. Now is the time to resolve this issue, it has been talked about for too many years. All other sports have professional referees.”

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Last year, Haas switched out Mick Schumacher for Nico Hulkenberg, changing their driver lineup. But tension has only increased as the team’s current ranking of seventh hasn’t achieved anything magnanimous. However, team leader Guenther Steiner has expressed some optimism for the team’s development.

 Guenther Steiner offers a glimmer of optimism

The team made some adjustments to its driver roster prior to the season. This allowed team leader Guenther Steiner to relax since Hulkenberg brought with him a wealth of expertise. Currently, team Haas is trailing McLaren at P7 and has accumulated just eight points. However, as the seventh race approached, Steiner pauses to discuss the team’s situation and remarks that there are some encouraging signals.

As per GP Blog, Steiner said, “I think the good thing is baseline car performance is pretty good. That’s actually even slightly better than we anticipated, so that’s positive but what’s lacking is the consistency across tracks and also race pace. That’s what we’re working on, but I think we’re working across departments better, so it’s very positive.”

He concluded, “ So far, I think it’s slightly better than I expected, but because the potential is there, we can see it. We just need to improve the race performance.”

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Do you believe the FIA will take the Haas boss’s request seriously?