Canadian Grand Prix: FIA suspends race steward Derek Warwick for media comments

Warwick won the Le Mans 24 Hours, is a former president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club and is one of the most senior driver stewards in F1.

An ex-F1 driver is always one of the four stewards officiating at every grand prix.

Last week Warwick was quoted as saying that a penalty given to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the Spanish Grand Prix after the Dutchman apparently deliberately collided with Mercedes’ George Russell was “right”.

On a gambling website, Warwick said: “Should he have done what he did, in Turn Five with George Russell? Absolutely not. Did he get a penalty for that? Yes.

“It seems to me that, although he dove in, he then did turn away from George, but momentum pushed him against George. It is absolutely wrong and the FIA was right to give him a penalty.”

Warwick is the second driver steward to be punished by the FIA for commenting on races in the past six months.

In January Johnny Herbert was dropped by the FIA, which said his “duties as an FIA steward and that of a media pundit were incompatible”.

The FIA’s decision to suspend Warwick came a day after controversial statute changes were passed by the organisation’s general assembly.

The changes are said by critics to “risk further contributing to the erosion of the FIA’s reputation for competent and transparent governance” under president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

Ben Sulayem’s time in office since 2021 has been marked by a series of controversies, the majority of which have been focused on the erosion of accountability and good governance and the introduction of measures that enhance his power and reduce oversight.

When there are questions about how stewards arrived at decisions during a grand prix, the FIA refuses to comment on the basis that stewards are “independent from the FIA”.