Guenther Steiner has once again criticised the consistency of the Formula 1 stewarding system after seeing Romain Grosjean penalised for an opening lap clash with Esteban Ocon during Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
Ocon retired from a Grand Prix for the first time in his career following the crash with Grosjean at turn six, and stewards deemed the Frenchman fully responsible, which meant he was awarded a ten-second time penalty and two penalty points on his Superlicence.
Grosjean himself was surprised with the penalty, and Steiner agreed with his driver, particularly as other incidents, such as Lance Stroll blocking the Frenchman during Qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix being handed less severe penalties when the incident was potentially more dangerous.
“I share my surprise more in the verdict,” said Steiner, the team principal of the Haas F1 Team. “It doesn’t influence our result here. We were done by then. We took it as a test session, nothing else.
“He got two penalty points for a race accident in my opinion. Then you see Stroll got one penalty point when the speed difference was 140km/h and that was pretty dangerous.
“I’m struggling with consistency here. I continue to struggle. It doesn’t get any better. The more I mention it, I think it gets worse.”
