Steiner wants rethink after ‘unfair’ penalty

Guenther Steiner has called for a rethink of Formula 1’s “pretty unfair” penalty system after Romain Grosjean was bust for speeding in qualifying in China.

Antonio Giovinazzi crashed late in Q1 at the Shanghai circuit bringing out the double-waved yellow flags.

And although those behind on the track insist that they slowed down, Haas driver Romain Grosjean being one of those, the Frenchman and Jolyon Palmer were both handed five-place grid penalties for failing to slow sufficiently.

It is a penalty that can’t be appealed, and that, coupled with the stewards not speaking to the driver about the incident, has irked the Haas team boss.

“You cannot appeal this decision,” Steiner said. “They are racing decisions, you cannot appeal but I think they should know what they did.

“The data which Romain tweeted… if you don’t open your DRS or if you didn’t try to do your fastest laps, or I lift, but I don’t open my DRS and I try to do my fastest laps, it’s difficult.

“I don’t know if they looked at all of the stuff. I think that’s pretty unfair.

“It’s not what they should be doing. If they have any doubt they should be calling someone back to get it explained and not just jump to conclusions and say ‘hey, this is what we think’ and penalise a guy.”

Despite his frustrations, Steiner says it is time to move on but that he hopes the FIA reassess the manner in which these sorts of penalties are handed out.

He added: “It’s water under the bridge, I hope they learn out of it and the FIA learns out of it too.

“[I hope] that they look into, analyse it and see what these guys did. It’s out of my hands, I have my say and that’s it. We move on.”