Formula 1 race director, Michael Masi, has recently confirmed that there has been no change in approach to addressing penalties since Sebastian Vettel’s controversial incident in Canada. The German driver’s five-second penalty for returning to the track in an unsafe manner stripped victory away from the four-time World Champion at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and resulted in the FIA being hit by a strong wave of criticism from all corners.
But, since the incident, the FIA have made no changes to their set-up and the rulebook cannot and will not be changed during a season. However, Michael Masi did state that changes to the rulebook for future seasons are definitely up for discussion: “No, we treat them exactly the same. My rule is that we’ve got a rulebook there, and the rulebook is the one that we’ve got for the entire 2019 season,” Masi said via Crash.net – “I don’t think it would be wise in any sport to change anything mid-year. Is it something like any rulebook that you can look at moving forward? Absolutely. We’re always constantly evolving with everything.” – he explained.
Michael Masi said changes to the rules could be implemented if there is an unanimous agreement between teams, but the International Sporting Code would also then have to be taken into consideration: “I think if all the teams agree with it, no different to any other set of regulations,” he added – “But there’s also the International Sporting Code that has its provisions in it that are also used from a code of driving conduct side. So that’s got it’s own process which obviously isn’t just Formula 1-specific, it’s for the entire sport. It’s something we will look at collectively and jointly.” – the Formula 1 race director concluded.
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