F1 drivers moaning is like diving footballers – just get on with the racing

Accidents in motor racing happen. The collision between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris on Lap 64 was by no means new - it happens race after race right through the field, but, when it happens to the leaders, it gets everyone’s attention.

What gets me down a little, however, is drivers complaining. I watched the England-Slovakia football match afterwards. You see the referee being put in a very difficult position because all of the players on both teams are constantly taking dives, and it is then up to him to police what was a dive and what was a true foul.

That is now happening in racing. It is exactly the same thing. We have got the drivers on the radio all the time. “He pushed me off.” “He closed the door on me.” “He’s weaving.” “He’s doing this.” It’s the same tactics - their way of drawing attention to the organising body – the officials, the referee, as such, in Formula One. I think it is getting way out of control. We all want to hear the radio, but we want to hear it with a bit of fun, as opposed to this constant complaining, when drivers are leaving the pit lane, going through the pit lane, or pulling out the garage, or whenever.

Competition was tough in Austria. I was quite surprised by the race because Verstappen’s Red Bull in qualifying was like a rocket ship. I thought that he would simply disappear in the race. But it does not take much to level the playing field, with a couple of slow pit stops combined and a couple of other factors which led to Lando breathing down his neck.

I think DRS and the Austrian track layout leads potentially to a problem. The DRS is on three straights, just after each other. You have got hairpin bends between those DRS runs. So, it is one of those situations where DRS gives you more top speed, in some cases 15 to 20mph, and you have got that one opportunity going in to a hairpin to overtake.

You have to do what Lando was doing and take the dive sometimes. Have a go at it and, inevitably, the other guy has to protect it a little bit. Max was maybe a bit too robust with his protection, but Lando was also pretty robust with his attack.

The 10-second penalty that Verstappen got was justified, but there is something that needs to be looked at as far as that is concerned. Because you go back to the sprint race, the same thing happened but Verstappen got him back into the next corner and was able to pull away.

Motor racing is motor racing. Accidents will happen. Max is fairly feisty when it comes to defence. We have seen it in the past. It is about competition. But sometimes I think a winner needs to know how to lose, because the championship is bigger than any one race win.

If I had been on the pit wall with Max as his engineer, I would have been saying, “Keep it clean. If he gets past, he gets past. You’ll be able to pass them in the next corner, or you’ll be able to pass them again on the next lap, because you’ll get the DRS”. We all know the Red Bull was quicker than the other cars when the DRS on their car was in use.

The set of circumstances he got into was team-infected, I suppose you might call it. Slow pit stops and the fact that the car was not as good or well-balanced in the last part of the race. Max was also a bit hot under the collar with the slow pit stop, losing a six or seven-second lead by not having as good a strategy as the team should have done. He was not managed very well by the team.

But going back to the complaining on the radio about other drivers is not the answer. These moans have the deliberate intention of ensuring the officials are getting it firsthand from the driver’s point of view. I think that is really wrong. I think something needs to happen to settle it all down a bit. We need to tell the drivers to just shut up and get on with their job of driving the car.

There is also some work to do to make penalties fairer. If a driver can get judged by the stewards to be at fault, and then still goes on to score big points, something needs to be done. If one driver loses completely out on the points, then it is no good that the other driver is still getting points. We have seen that over many years – between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, between Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill and even Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at Silverstone in 2019.

There have to be two penalty criteria to give the officials some discretion. Are you judged to be at fault? That is step one. If both drivers survive, then you know the one that is at fault has a penalty of X, Y, Z. But if you have taken the other driver out of the race, then the penalty should be bigger. If you are dicing with someone for 64 laps as such and you end up colliding, the stewards should be big, bold and mature enough in what they do to make a judgment, which I say should be twofold.

Team principals need to be setting better example

It is a fine line and it is always difficult to make these decisions. I hate to see penalties. I want to see racing. But I do not like to see the drivers all moaning and groaning about it and I do not like the engineers’ response to some of the drivers’ complaints. It is all just to make the officials aware in case they have fallen asleep. I think that is all a bit petty. Watching football, I just hate the dives that are taking place and players getting away with it. If we see Formula One get to that level, it will be very, very difficult to pull it back again.

It has never been as bad as it is. We have also heard a lot of sniping between Christian Horner and Toto Wolff over recent years. It is not great and these sort of behaviours all become acceptable. Everybody has to make a bit of a compromise between helping each other a little to achieve the same goal, as opposed to trying to cut each other’s throats, which is what we keep seeing.

I am not sure Red Bull know how to lose just yet. They definitely know how to win, but I am not sure they know how to lose. Sunday, I think, was a typical example of potentially ending up second, as opposed to winning the race, but they were not willing to allow themselves to get to that position. The team principal is King Kong. He is the one that needs to be setting the discipline within the team. If I was a team principal, I would be saying to the driver “just keep the mouth shut and drive the car - that’s your job”. Do not start criticising the other drivers. Let the officials see what they see and let them make judgments, it would be the same for everybody.