Formula One news

Herbert questions steward decisions

Johnny Herbert is puzzled towards a number of 'silly' decisions recently made by the stewards of Formula One. The Englishman, last seen in the sport as Midland's sporting director in 2006, made the comments when learning of the outcome to the Hamilton-Trulli saga of Australia.

"This latest controversy does nothing for Formula 1 with everything that happened last weekend," the three-time race winner told Setanta. "In normal circumstances you do not pass under the safety car; the FIA have this radio communication - they were able to listen to it and that has led them to this decision. It sounds as if it's a big mistake by McLaren and, at the end of the day, that has harmed the race result, especially for Lewis."

The radio communication in question is that of McLaren from during the Grand Prix, as the FIA stewards did not have access to the material on Sunday evening. Herbert continued to express his general dissatisfaction at numerous steward decisions: "There have been some big decisions in the last year, and certainly ones that do seem to be fairly strange decisions," he continued. "The one that I could never understand is the one from Spa last year. Lewis went off the track and then let Kimi Räikkönen pass again, but was still deemed to have had too much of an advantage. This case from Australia just seems to be another one which, unfortunately for F1, is not a very good thing."

Herbert added that he understands it is wrong to pass under a safety car, but believes the initial part of the incident was unavoidable: "When Lewis passed Jarno, who was off on the grass completely, at that part of track (Turn 15) it is very difficult not to pass someone if they are on the grass because you go very, very slowly in a racing car across grass. I don't think Lewis would have had a choice but again, until everything comes out, no one really knows."

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