P1 with Matt and Tommy - F1 penalties don't make sense - what needs to change?

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

The FIA's race director Niels Wittich abruptly stepped down - or was fired, depending on who you ask - this week. So, on the back of some bizarre officiating over the last few races, something needs to be done - and we’re here to discuss it. Are they actually putting any effort into improving officiating? Why are penalties only being enforced hours after races have finished? And how can we make F1 more accessible by improving the communication around controversial decisions?Join us for our End of Season tour across the UK this December! There are still some tickets available for London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol right here!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race podcast series, every P1 episode ad-free, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with other F1 fans!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. I hope everybody is enjoying, well, probably not enjoying the fact that we have no Formula One for a little while. So we thought we would pop off today, Tommy. We've loaded the Rantmobile. We've filled it with petrol and we are ready to discuss Formula One penalties and stewarding and how sometimes it just doesn't make sense. It certainly doesn't. And there's been, it's always more heightened, isn't it, by a championship battle or when it kind of coming down to those final races and there's a lot to play for.

And the fact that we've now got, yeah, we've had three races in a row really where there's been big contentious decisions. We thought we'd dive into basically the whole process of Formula One and how it's done and what needs to change about it. because I don't think people are particularly happy. No, we're not happy either, Tommy, are we? Because we want consistency and we want Formula One to be as fair as possible. Now, before we dive into everything, we need to share a five-star review because we're going to start reading out a few of them again. So if you want yours to be read out, then leave us a five-star review.

Let's know why you love this podcast, and we would appreciate it very much. This one comes in from Joe B-28-28 in the UK. Listening to Matt and Tommy is like going to the pub with mates, enjoying a cool, crisp drink, having banter on the crazy world of F1, only to snap back to reality to realize you are stuck in traffic on the way to work. Guys, you make the journey manageable, keep smashing it. Thank you, Joe. I hope right now, not that you're in traffic potentially, but that you are driving

and that you almost have this moment of pure wonder that it's being read out. So thank you, Joe. Really appreciate the love and support. So before we get into the shooiding, I think we need to talk about something that is relevant, isn't it? And that's the fact that Neal's Vittish has stepped down from the role of race director with immediate effect. Step down in the sense of go down the stairs or we'll push you kind of vibe, right?

That's basically what step down usually means in this context. But it's very interesting, isn't it, Tommy, that with three races to go, they're making this big change where perhaps we've had questions over the consistency of studenting. I don't think it's been anywhere near what we've had previously in 2021 in particular and when the man, the myth, maybe not the legend, Michael Massey and his stint as race director,

but it's still a little bit strange. It is very strange. Just to clarify, because I know it's something that people often get confused about, is the race director and the stewards are different parts. So the race director is the person that decides things like red flags, and when the safety car comes out and stuff, and the stewarding decides the, the penalties and things. So the race director,

the fact that this has happened straight after a lot of question marks over how the red flag was handled, how the, you know, a lot of drivers we've seen now since the Brazilian Grand Prix, there are a lot of drivers. We have that beauty now of being able to hear so many different team radios

and the drivers basically going, this is definitely a red flag. I can't even see anything questionable why it didn't go read in the first place, things like that. And of course, the fact that this has happened, there's also some talks from journalists on Twitter that they have been told by Neil's Wittich

that he basically wasn't. Hasn't stepped down. He was fired. So, yes, not all is as it seems and not good for what's going on at the moment with the whole kind of race direction and stuff. You know, you've also got two different governing bodies that there's something that also is quite confusing from the outside

is Formula One and the FIA are different and the FIA are the governing body that this is their realm, if you like, to bring stewards and race directors and govern the championship, but then Formula One are separate. And, you know, there's a whole other debate over the separation between them and whether they need each other anymore and all that, but that's for another day. Is it an archaic system, etc?

Well, we shall see in the months and years to come, I'm sure it will come up many more times. Do you remember when we spoke about the F1 Super League back in COVID? That was quite something, isn't it, where they were all kind of thinking about breaking away, and it feels as though when they clash heads, that's the moment they then go, do we need you actually?

I don't think so. Also, since time of recording, they've also sent a sassy letter to the FIA president as well, haven't they? The drivers, the GPDA, to basically say, you know, we're not children, and you need to watch your language in the way you portray yourself, which was sass. So much source, it's crazy. Right, now let's get into stewarding, shall we? There's been some questions sent in.

P1 Patreon member Michaela, how would you develop a program of quality stewards that can be consistently relied upon if you were the race director. If I was the race director, wow. Sherlock Clare would win every crowd free. Red flags, red flag consistences will go even further the way that everyone wouldn't want

if you're not a Charlotte Clare fan. But I think it's been brought up time and time again around the sort of roving door, the rotating door of stewards. And they never have the same three or however many you decide to have in a team. And there are arguments for and against this, right? Having a rotating door of, or constantly changing the stewards is an attempt to eliminate bias

because if you get the wrong three and someone ate someone and someone ate someone, then you could almost argue that they would always be targeted, but we're human. Everyone has natural bias to some degree. So that's one thing. I think another thing is, does any. particular XF1 driver want to carry the weight of being a steward every single week. And essentially being a referee and a target for quite a lot of criticism, I imagine, week in, week out.

And they tend to look, don't they, towards XF1 drivers and people that probably like, yeah, I'll pop in for one, no problem. Because unless you do your research, you don't fully know who's actually in the stewarding room. But if it's a team announced at the start of the year, then it could be very different. But then on the flip side to that, of course, you have, if you have different people all the time, you then lack consistency in the sense of judging calls when the rulebook is so massive. And I think I remember in the last Grand Prix, Damon Hill and those not speaking about how there's, again, pros and cons of having a really detailed rulebook compared to just opening up to judgment. So in a nutshell, Formula One is insanely complex.

Every incident is different. A two-footed tackle is not a two-footed tackle in Formula One. There's a hundred different versions of that. And this is where problems arise. I think with this, yeah, you're right. You wouldn't want to be a steward for a start, particularly nowadays with the likes of social media. It is that referee-like where, you know, they will open up.

And they have a team of stewards, which is something I think a lot of people forget as well when they're talking about a certain individual that may be doing the stewarding at that point and talking about their biases and things like that, that it is a team of people that are appointed with different backgrounds and things like that that form a team. So they have like a local steward and then they have like a more regular steward that does a few races or whatever. but I think this all comes down to the fact that the FIA, whether that's the FIA or Formula One going forward or whoever, actually need to invest some of this money that they are making from all these fines of driver swearing and things like that. I mean, Tommy, they're only a multi-billion dollar companies.

I know. They need to be putting money back into actually having a proper stewarding system. You know, like football have referees and they, there's a whole, you know, there, it shouldn't be a case of like, oh, you know, Barry used to race an F1, fancy doing a, fancy doing a stewarding. I know it's not quite that extreme,

but it is kind of, you know, they've not, they've not done their whole process of becoming a steward for Formula One. It's like, oh, you know a referee. You know, you have some will knowledge, don't you? Yeah, come on then. Exactly, whereas every other sport is like you train to be a referee, your whole career and you work your way up

and then you become, why is there not a place in motorsport for that? Why is there not people, very brave people, it has to be said. They're like, no, I'm going to train to be a steward and you work your way up and you work in lower formulas or whatever and you build a reputation or whatever. And then when you're the top of the top,

you work in Formula One and there'll still be, you know, just by having better stewarding, you're still going to get contentious decisions and people will always disagree with things because that's just Formula One. But there needs to be a proper process because the process right now is so archaic just to have like,

it almost feels like something in the 70s where you're just choosing three people come in, go and have a go. Why is there not a system in place where there's proper Formula One race stewards that can rotate and that is literally their job because it's not like it's a you know a part-time job there's so many races in a year it's a full-time thing it shouldn't be yeah it's crazy to me that they don't they don't have that for sure and I hate to keep bringing up football as an example

but I remember a few years ago they mentioned Formula One that they were having this out of out of track VAR system type thing and I believe that the problem with penalty penalties being given out in Formula One is that there's no reasoning or explanation behind it

it's either it's a penalty or it's not I feel as though Formula One fans would still be aggrieved if our favourite driver gets a penalty or doesn't or we don't agree with a certain penalty but you also feel as though, okay, why has the stewards given a 10 second penalty or five second penalty to Lando for going off the track? They then show some evidence that they can feed into the main broadcast. Okay, so Lando was not halfway ahead. This is the reason we're giving the penalty.

Done, right? And then we've got, then we don't have to question exactly, oh, let me whip out my 1,000 page FIA rulebook and go to Article 26.1.6.1.4.4.5. a rulebook and go to Article 26.B-B-5, we don't have access to that. So I feel as though breaking down the barriers and the sort of question marks over why they've gone for decisions might actually help quite a lot for those aggrieved Formula One fans that don't understand why they've done it. And I think what's even more confusing that you've just made me think of that I think if you're a casual fan and you maybe don't understand the side of the sport because

it is very different to other sports that we mentioned earlier that F1 and F1 and the FIA are different and there's different sides to it and then Formula One are almost trying to, they've become a lot more media savvy with stuff. So I personally, if I didn't know all those ins and outs and I'm watching Formula One and you basically got the main broadcast, Julian Palmer or whatever, analyzing an incident and sometimes disagreeing with the stewards, that's really odd to me that you can, and it shows that it is a contentious thing,

but isn't it weird to have the sport themselves, you know, you go on the Formula One YouTube channel and it's like, Lando got, say, like, say, for example, Lando got a penalty. And then you have Jolian Palmer as an example being like, no, he shouldn't have got a penalty, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's confusing for,

you almost need the stewards to be on an iPad going, this is why. And maybe, again, like, if it's a full time and part of their job, maybe that's something they could do. But at the moment, it's not, there's no, like you say, there's no sort of like indication of why this is. Not a visual indication anyway, right? So we get these boring old A4 pieces of paper put online

that goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, had a collision at blah, blah, blah, blah, and this is the reason why, and fine, you know, for us hardcore Formula One fans, we can deep dive into that and sort of try and piece together exactly what they mean. But visually, now this is where we need to actually, in my opinion. It's 2024. Yeah, it's breaking down the barriers for a lot of Formula One fans that might have not been watching for very long, as you say, or just don't know the ins and outs of the rulebook.

I don't think anyone, I don't even the drivers, apart from Max Verstapp, but knows the ins and outs of the rule book. So, yeah, I think that would be a really, good thing, of course, that does open them up to even more criticism if they show visually exactly why they've made a decision. But that's where I think the sport needs to go. We don't need more question marks. We need some things answered. Yeah, there needs to be concisive decisions and there needs explanations rather than we're doing it after the race and then here's an A4 piece of paper and now we've all gone home.

That needs to be binned off forever. The flipping after the race investigations. Oh, we need to speak to the drivers. No, you don't. You are the referee. What is Carlos Sines or Blumen Logan Sargent going to say about an incident that you cannot see visually? Make a decision. At the end of the race, it should be the end of the race. Unless it literally happens on lap 53 of 53, on the last corner of the race and something very contentious happens, then maybe there's extreme factors. But Lando, jumping the start, or not jumping the start, going after the aborted start, how are we waiting like three hours or however long it was after the race to find out whether any of those drivers got penalised?

We don't need to find out from the drivers what they were told or not told. There has to be cut decisions because we were all sat there going, was Lando going to get more of a penalty? Imagine if it won the race and then we're all questioning, oh, is he going to drop down? This is massive for the championship. Tune in next week or tune in three weeks' time to find out whether Lando got a penalty if you're a Kanshel F1 fan. I just don't personally say it.

No, it's ridiculous that they can do those decisions and leave them out for so long. And I thought that they would have a process in place now. You know, we've been complaining about that since 2008 about having a graphic that says investigated after the race. And it's like, why aren't you doing this now? You've got all these stewards there that meant to be experts and doing what they're doing. Why it can't be decided you've got, oh, we've introduced this VAR, things at Sabbyw 2021.

Well, why aren't they sitting there analyzing it during a two-hour rain delay when you could just get the decision done? He takes his penalty or his fine, which it ended up being. And we get on with it and we get a proper race and you get to know what happens. Yeah, I think there's just an almost lack of understanding or really getting to grips from a Formula One perspective or FIA, whoever's to blame, of how important that is for constructing a storyline when you're watching as a fan. I think that's where the disconnect sometimes comes in with that sort of stuff.

Anyway, gosh, we're popping off. And I did tell you, we've loaded up the rantometer, the rant machine, and we are going at it. And I think it's mainly because we're missing Formula One, but also I think we're saying some stone cold facts. Right. Next question. Prince Athy.

Why can't the Steward and Race Director be from a nationality which are not the same as the drivers and teams just like in football. I think it goes back to what we were saying about there doesn't seem to be that much effort put into this whole program of how we make it work, this stewarding system. And I think if you then take out all of the nationalities of the drivers

that are currently on the grid and then select from that pool when they're not really doing too much to find people, I'm sure it's quite probably narrow at that stage with the mix of nationalities that we have on the grid. do I think that's the way to go? Potentially.

I haven't really, again, I don't see it as an actual, that's a kind of solution come tomorrow because of how archaic this stewarding program is. But I think it would help for sure for those discussions around bias. But then again, as we say, we're all human. We all have relationships and friends and things like that. I think the nationality thing is something.

that's exploded recently in terms of British bias and all that kind of stuff. And then you have Max de Stauffin who's made, you know, actively sort of twisting the knife and making jokes about it and saying like, now I've got the wrong passport and things like that. Is it as much of a problem, you know, in football where you support your nationality in like a World Cup or something, then yes, it's very problematic. you wouldn't have an English referee doing an England-Germany final or something, would you? But in Formula One, yeah, exactly, but in Formula One, it's very different. And you kind of alluded to it that it's not just a nationality thing.

It's the stewards have all got biases and stories. You know, you talk about, I don't know, Johnny, you. So if you look at actually, we'll go to Brazil. And the Brazilian Grand Prix steward, so it's worth remembering that there are four people, not just one, it's not just Johnny Herbert doing it. So for Brazil, they had the Brazilian GP steward, which was Dr. Gerd Ernstor,

who was a member of Germany's motorsport body. Then you had a Brazilian GP steward, who was Andrew. Malayu who's currently the president of the Barbados Motoring Federation then you had the other Brazilian Grand Prix Steward which was the one that everyone knew and has mentioned a lot is Johnny Herbert ex-Fourn1 racing driver and then you have a national Brazilian GP steward and you have this at every race so someone from that who was Luciano bertie who was also a Formula One driver and has done commentary and things like that

you know, there's so many things there anyway, like Luchano Bertie used to be a Ferrari test driver. It's not just nationalities. There's so many stories up and down the paddock. And I think that's something that needs to be looked at anyway is that you're getting these people that do have a history. And there will be natural biases anyway. And they are professionals that are there to do their job properly, whether you think they are doing it or not. But it's not just a nationality thing. in my opinion there's so many stories up and down the paddock

of why there will be certain biases here and there and it's impossible to just kind of cement it down to nationality. Right, next question, P1 patron member Dennis. Did Herbert show his bias by claiming the fact that Norris and Zach Brown agreed with him, which meant he was right? Right, so I've got the quote here, and it's a bad one, I have to say.

So Johnny Herbert was speaking after basically the penalty that Max Sostappen was given in Mexico and his two penalties given. And Yosh Sastappen hit out at Johnny Herbert and said that his stewarding was ridiculous and all this kind of stuff, which he would. You know, of course, he's going to back his son and as you'd expect. But Johnny Herbert then was quoted after when he was sort of talking on a website. And he said that I wasn't the only one to think that Max was over the top in Mexico. Lando Norris and Zach Brown thought so too, which is absolutely wild. Sorry, the two examples.

The two examples were that his championship rivals, which is absolutely insane to me. And I think this is a wider problem, which I'm going to rant about now, is that, No way should an F1 steward be allowed to just go around and talk to the press and all this kind of stuff. This is another thing that I think opens an absolute can of worms. I hate to keep bringing it back to football, but there's a recent story that some people may have seen where a Premier League referee got a bit tipsy, shall we say, and was being recorded and he called an ex-manager of a certain team a word that I can't see. say on this podcast and basically it started a whole debate and of course Twitter being Twitter or X being X whatever you want to call it they will fans have found old examples of refereeing decisions that have been made against this team from this manager and all this kind of stuff

please tell me why it's okay for a driver sorry a steward to be basically having opinions on things. And, you know, Johnny Herbert, it's not just Johnny Herbert. There are other people that have done it. Damon Hill's done it. Other people have done it. You know, we're talking about Luciano Bertie there was a TV pundit. They shouldn't be TV pundits and have their own podcast and presenters.

Because can we just talk about how insane it would be if a really contentious decision in the World Cup final happened and the referee is there talking to the press afterwards and well, Brazil were the better team. They were amazing, weren't they? All this kind of stuff. Or Brazil deserved it. They were the better team. Like, it would be absolutely insane.

More specifically, Michael Massey launches a new podcast after Abu Dhabi 2021. The truth. And then goes, I think it was actually the right decision. Everyone at Red Bull agreed. They were actually on the phone to me at the time I made the decision. They said it was great. They loved it.

Christian Horner said, best decision Formula One has ever made. It's absolutely ridiculous. And this all comes down to the fact that they should be referees. They shouldn't be media. And there's so many examples of drivers, not just Johnny Herbert, that have done stewarding the past. And you can find quotes and things about them. And I think it's really, really detrimental that even if they will try and do their job,

the best as you can. If you had a steward that basically, as an example, had said some bad things about Fernando Alonzo in the past, and then he has to make a decision on a penalty for Fernando Alonzo, you're going to bring up all those old quotes and everything and say there's bias there. It shouldn't be that that shouldn't be the case, in my opinion, that they should be allowed afterwards to go around.

and give their thoughts and feelings about the race and say, oh, actually, no, you're wrong. You shouldn't do this. And, oh, this was a great race from blah, blah, blah, because it just gives more ammunition for bias, basically. It does. And also, you know, there's another question mark. I'm looking at sort of quotes from Johnny Herbert. He's talking to a betting website.

Like, I mean, that in itself, you know, you go, well, you're probably being paid to have this article, which is then bringing more attention. And then, ah, it's just a can of worms right now to be. honest with you. But yeah, I completely agree. And it's why conveniently all football referees favorite team are a third division team you've never heard of because that's the way they at least hide their bias is by saying they don't, yeah, they don't like big teams. Anyway, this is not a football podcast, this is a Formula One. But that would be the case. If you had like what we said right at the start of this, that if you had people that that had been trained to be an FIA

race steward or a Formula One race steward, you wouldn't have every week going, right, the race steward is Joe Bloggs. And then you can search Joe Bloggs, a certain driver, and they have basically slandered them in the past or had lots of opinions on them, or they've actively said, or they've driven for Ferrari or something, and Ferrari get a favorable decision. that there's so many things like that that can happen in Formula One and it shouldn't be the case. Good stuff. Let's go to the next question. Break GTI-5. Should we have the same set of stewards for every race? Categorical answer here, Tommy. Yes or no. For me, do I think we should have the same set of stewards? Ah, that's a really difficult thing to categorically say yes or no to, and I'm regretting it immediately. I think if the right stewarding system that we've already spoken about is put in place and they have been trained up and they don't have a history of driving for Ferrari as a test driver for 15 years.

Yes. Perhaps there's a rotation after a year, but I think we should try it. I don't think so. I think it needs to change every race, just like referees do in other sports. You can have a bunch of people that do it and rotate. Absolutely fine. But naturally there will be biases. You know, we joked about even the people that grow up and say in this,

ideal world situation that we've created here where people are training to be stewards, they will still have natural biases with certain things. So you rotate them every now and then and it kind of, you just need more of them as well. It shouldn't be the same people that need to do three races or whatever. It's interesting there because I feel like your decision there also requires some additional factors like maybe the rules being clarified and things like that where we again don't have these question marks. I think we should give it a go. A Formula One tried everything else. Why don't we try a same set of stewards for a year, see if it's absolute chaos and we get, you know, Franco Colopinto champion of the world in 2025? Would you be completely

against it, Tommy? Like if they did try it for a year? I don't think you should. I would be against it. I don't think you could, you should have the same people doing every single race. There needs to be, I do think for all the renting we've done, I do, I do like that they've got four stewards and they think about rotating it and they have like a representative. It's just who they pick is not right in terms of just picking X drivers who have so many opinions and things. Counter offer. Head steward.

So we have a head steward that doesn't rotate throughout the year and a team that does. Thoughts. I think that that could work. It's kind of a, they're almost like the race director then, that they're like the boss. They'd be the boss steward. and then everyone else can feed their opinion and Johnny Herbert can say oh Lando agreed with me so I think you should

but that would work to a sense and then you've got you know people overall working but it's I still think that that this perfect solution that we've come up with is the way to go but then of course implementing that now you'd have to get people doing it from a young age

and then it's going to take years and years to do it so how do you find that solution now? Exactly. Let's go to the next question at Galaxy. Why are their decisions so random and why do they take so long to make them? Why is a rulebook not laid out if X happens, issue Y penalty or reprimand?

Because Formula 1 is so complex. It is, every single incident is different. And I do appreciate the difficult task on the steward's hands when it comes to making consistent decisions every single week. I think that maybe on the face of maybe 50 to 75% of incidents, it is quite a black or white yes or no kind of decision. But the ones that usually are the contentious ones, especially when it's in the, at the front. That's when the limelight is there. That's when everyone brings out the receipts of every other decision that's happened in the past, but then they forget that back in the past, there was a different set of

rules compared to now, and they constantly sort of alter and amend the overtaking rules and where you have to be when you go around the outside compared to the inside and so on and so forth. It does open, and I don't think, I don't know the answer to this, because you could go one of two ways. One where the rule book is a lot more, you know, we'll just let the stewards aside. Or you've got the rule book that tries to come up

with every different situation possible to then have an answer. And it's sometimes when it is so laid out, you're then complaining, why don't you just use some common sense here of, wow, come on. Lando, did he really deserve a penalty in America for what he did?

And like track limits, for example, and being forced one. and then being, having put a mark against your name because you went off the track, things like that, where the stewards have looking at the apex is a great example of that. Exactly. People have now realised that that is the most, it's a, it's a rule that they've written in, which is in theory what everyone wants of like a black and white rule, but drivers know how to abuse it now because you can just dive bomb to the apex, say you've made it first,

and then it's like, well, technically the rulebook says this. And then how do you put in the rules you may not dive bomb from 150 metres back to get to the, that's when you can't really write that down. Exactly. So then it's in the spirit of racing, right? And it goes down more to common sense. Yeah. An opinion, yeah.

I think the perfect example for me here is why it's not black and white and there's a rule but laid out. I think the perfect example for me is that the Maxostappan penalties in Mexico, he got two penalties. So at both 10 seconds. And on paper, you say, is forced Lando off the first one, 10 second penalty? Second one is forced Lando off 10 second penalty? No way. Common sense, take the rulebook out of it, common sense, no way are those two penalties the same. We've said it, and I'm sure a lot of people will agree, even if you think they should have been worse or lesser.

There's no way that the first penalty was anywhere near as bad as a lot of. a second. In my opinion, the first one should have been less. The second one, there's definitely kind of people saying that it should be more and I can see absolutely why people have said that because the second one is way, way, way, way worse. So how can you put those two under the same thing? You can't. And that's when it does need to be a decision from, yeah, like an opinion. and for all the complaining, unfortunately, the way the sport is, and it's the same even when we talk about other sports, there's still contentious things because sometimes it will just come down to have an opinion.

How many times do we see in Formula One that they give a penalty and then on the skypad they're going, no, they shouldn't have it. And then the other pundit goes, yeah, they should have. And then the other pundit goes, well, no, I think this. imagine trying to you're never going to please everyone because it's going to it's all about just just making sensible decisions and having kind of no a no bias person and a set of people no bias person a no bias person who's that well yeah do we have one in in the world well not not a no less a less biased person there'll always be natural biases a non-track record person yeah

an AI robot to make decisions. Don't make. That might actually be the future. Yeah, very true. Spin the wheel. Chat GPT. Was it a penalty? Yes or no?

Yeah. There's always going to be, unfortunately, the rule book can never decide every single situation in Formula One because there's just so many ways

you can overtake, go off the track, pass someone, do this, do that, It's wet. You then take into account a little bit of, okay, well, it was treacherous. Visibility.

And, oh, he was ahead of the apex. And, oh, have you banged wheels? Have you not banged wheels? Have you banged wheels together? Have you hit their side pod? Or there's so many things. A million combinations. If you actually wrote this black and white rule book,

I don't think there'd be enough paper on earth to actually have it. No, absolutely not. And I think as well to say after we've sort of, gone on this rant machine is that we don't expect Formula One to be perfect. We just want a system that makes a little bit more sense. We will always have moments, as you say, Tommy, contentious moments that will cause debate. We have it in every single sport in the world. And Formula One, especially with how complex it is, is no exception. So I think what we're trying to say is, let's make it a little bit easier for ourselves here, but we don't think there is a permanent fix

because they never will be and then we'll have nothing to talk about. We don't want it to be too simple, do we, Tommy? You're never going to please everyone. No, you're certainly not, and we know that all too well. So thank you everybody for tuning in. This has been a beefy one. This has been almost a race review podcast. So I hope you've all enjoyed it.

Tommy, what are your final thoughts, please? My final thoughts are if you enjoy controversial stewarding decisions, we're going to be talking about Abu Dhabi 2021 on our Patreon. So there's a little plug. Goodness me. What happened in that one? I'll have to do some research. Thank you, everybody.

We'll see you very soon. And yeah, next week, Las Vegas predictions and all that good stuff. We'll be back into it for the first of three final races of the season. So look forward to that. And we'll see you very soon. Lots of love. Bye. And there we have it.

The end of the podcast. I hope that carpet that you're currently cleaning You're getting all of those stains out right now. Okay? That one over there, you've missed it. Okay? Go get that out. And actually, you're prepping a meal right now, aren't you?

I see you. Did you just chop that carrot up? I love raw carrots. That's wild. That's crazy. Oh my God, me and you, Tommy. That's wild. Thinking of carrots.

But get that meal prep done. I know that the podcast isn't going to go on long enough for you to finish your meal prep. But get it done for the whole week, and then you won't be complaining. All right. Lots of love. Sweet dreams. Keep pushing in the gym.

Keep running. Goodbye. Keep doing skin care. Keep stewarding. Oh. Well, apparently anyone could ever go. P1 is a stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.