McLaren willing to help pay for professional F1 stewards

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says he welcomes the FIA’s move to make Formula 1 race stewarding more professional and suggests teams could help contribute to their wages.

The FIA is working on a new officials department to train up more qualified race officials, including stewards and race directors, against the backdrop of president Mohamed Ben Sulayem sounding the alarm bells over what he feels is a lack of trained officials coming through.

Last year Sulayem also intervened to sack race directors Niels Wittich and Janette Tan, as well as long-time stewards Tim Mayer, while earlier on Wednesday it was announced Johnny Herbert would step down from race stewarding amid unease over the combination of officiating and his punditry work.

One key element is the desire to have more remunerated, full-time officials rather than relying on volunteers as is currently the case, although questions remain over who would foot the bill.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, the FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said it was “getting a bit unfair to just rely on people to do it out of their good heart. We want to go to a more professional body in the future.

“That’s not to exclude volunteers, but it’s to have a body that can spend the Monday morning after a race analysing every single decision, making sure it was reached correctly, seeing what could be improved.”

FIA officials walk the track, including steward Derek Warwick

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Speaking at the Autosport Business Exchange: London on Wednesday, McLaren chief Brown said he would welcome full-time FIA race stewards and would accept McLaren paying a percentage towards their wages.

“To have part-time, unpaid stewards in a multi-billion-dollar sport where everything is on the line to make the right call… I don’t think we are set up for success by not having full-time stewards,” Brown said.

“The individuals are fine but the rulebook is too restrictive. I’d like us to take a step back, loosen it up. Have full-time stewards who can make more of a subjective decision of whether that was right or wrong.

“As far as paying for the stewards, this will probably be unpopular amongst my fellow teams. I’m happy if McLaren and all the racing teams contribute. It’s so important for the sport. It can’t be that expensive if everybody contributes. It’s not going to break the bank.

“What I don’t know is what’s the relationship contractually between the FIA and Formula 1 as far as what’s the level of expectations on stewarding. But at the end of the day, the agreement says part-time stewarding is not paid.”

Brown said teams need to be willing to help contribute to professional stewarding if they truly want to see improvements to the current system, which has come under frequent criticism.

“In any business, if you want something different, it’s called a change order and if you want to change something, you have to pay for it,” he added.

“So, if we have to pay for it, in the big scheme of things I do not think it will be a significant amount. If it comes back to McLaren where you pay a percentage and what F1 will pay and what the FIA will pay, if you break up that fee, it is not that much but I think it is that important.”