The FIA System 1 race director tends to get blamed for issues which don’t essentially fall inside their area.
Penalty selections, to take one instance, are a very frequent trigger for confusion amongst followers. The race director can – and infrequently does – question incidents which they really feel needs to be checked out. However it’s the stewards who do the looking-at.
It’s the stewards who resolve whether or not to penalise a driver and, in that case, how. Nonetheless, the race director typically will get it within the ear from those that disapprove of choices they didn’t make.
That a lot was clear within the response from some on social media yesterday to the information of Niels Wittich’s shock departure from the position.
However the timing of the announcement – three rounds earlier than the top of the season, with each championships hanging within the stability – invited the interpretation this was not a long-planned change. It was hanging, too, that the information was hurried out shortly earlier than System One Administration confirmed particulars of its widely-teased new pre-season launch occasion.
So, few have been stunned when, quickly afterwards, got here phrase Wittich hadn’t chosen to maneuver on, because the FIA’s assertion claimed, in an effort to “pursue new alternatives”.
The F1 race director’s duty is to make sure the secure and clean operating of grands prix as laid down by the FIA’s guidelines. Wittich seems to have executed this effectively, actually in comparison with the usual set by his predecessor, whose error throughout his remaining race in cost plunged F1 into disaster because it arguably swung the result of the 2021 world championship.
Advert | Change into a RaceFans supporter and
F1 race director is a uniquely demanding position, the place selections are taken in cut up seconds and the stakes, as Michael Masi found, are extraordinarily excessive. He has been thrust into the position at virtually zero discover three seasons prior when his predecessor Charlie Whiting died on the eve of the 2019 championship. However although Masi in the end misplaced his job by triggering an issue which introduced F1 into disrepute, different troubling incidents additionally occured on his watch.
Sergio Perez had a near-miss with a pair of marshals at Monaco in 2019. The next 12 months an analogous incident occured involving his workforce mate Lance Stroll and others at Imola. At Istanbul that 12 months a qualifying session started in moist circumstances whereas marshals have been nonetheless on the monitor recovering a automotive.
The FIA’s subsequent investigation into the farcical 2021 championship decider concluded Masi had change into over-stretched as a result of calls for of his workload. It’s not onerous to see how this was the case amid the strains of two consecutive seasons badly disrupted by Covid-19.
F1’s laws needed to be extensively overhauled to permit races to go forward amid a pandemic. A string of occasions have been cancelled and calendars compressed with a number of double- and triple-headers. Masi’s time between races was consumed by conducting inspections of a collection of tracks which have been added to the calendar, together with two new venues within the run-up to Abu Dhabi.
Added to that was the fierce rivalry between Crimson Bull and Mercedes as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton scrapped for the championship. Masi was repeatedly referred to as upon to make selections which probably had enormous implications for the title struggle – proper as much as the essential one he obtained improper.
So, within the aftermath of one among F1’s greatest controversies for years, the collection discovered itself needing a brand new race director. It settled on two: Wittich from Germany’s DTM collection and his WEC counterpart Eduardo Freitas, who rotated the job between them over the 22-round 2022 season.
Advert | Change into a RaceFans supporter and
On the time FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem indicated the governing physique would like to rotate race administrators. Wittich coated the primary 5 races that 12 months, then usually swapped with Freitas.
Nevertheless after the Japanese Grand Prix, the place the FIA was criticised by drivers after Pierre Gasly encountered a restoration car on the circuit throughout a Security Automobile interval, the governing physique introduced Wittich would cowl the ultimate races. He has remained in cost since, and till yesterday there was no signal he was about to get replaced. The scenario may hardly be extra completely different to Masi’s departure, which was broadly anticipated for 2 months earlier than phrase got here.
However Wittich is much from the primary notable title inside the FIA to depart over the previous 12 months, nevertheless. Amongst those that have left in that point are sporting director Steve Nielsen, technical director Tim Goss, chief govt Natalie Robyn and the top of its fee for girls, Deborah Mayer.
F1’s new race director is Rui Marques, who took cost of System 2’s occasions in the identical weekend Wittich first ran an F1 race. Marques didn’t seem to anticipate a transfer as much as F1 was imminent in an interview earlier this 12 months. “In three years’ time, if I’m nonetheless doing what I’m doing at the moment, I’m more than pleased,” he mentioned. “My profession is shifting a bit [towards] the one seater half in System 2 and System 3, I’m more than pleased to proceed this path.”
Wittich deserves credit score for the efficient however normally low-key job he did. One key change he applied got here instantly after his appointment within the type of a clarification of the principles on monitor limits.
Below Masi, F1 not solely enforced completely different guidelines at completely different corners on the identical monitor, however even completely different guidelines at completely different classes on the identical weekend. Wittich’s insistence that the white line needs to be the border in all places lastly pressured F1 to start out implementing efficient options to one among its most pointless issues this 12 months.
However arguably Wittich’s better energy as a race director was that, not like his predecessor, he by no means allowed himself to change into the story. That’s the purpose his substitute, F1’s fifth race director in six years, ought to attempt for.
Advert | Change into a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a every day electronic mail with all our newest tales – and nothing else. No advertising and marketing, no adverts. Enroll right here:
System 1
Browse all System 1 articles
