Opinion: Why Peter Sagan’s Tour de France ban shows Vettel was lucky

Whether Sebastian Vettel is a fan of cycling or not, he’ll be thankful this week that the Tour de France’s commissaires didn’t make the decisions in the Baku stewards' room – or the FIA’s Place de la Concorde.

Whatever the reasons for Vettel escaping further sanction for his reckless swerve into Lewis Hamilton in Baku, and regardless of whether you can deign to compare that to cycling star Peter Sagan’s rashly-swung elbow that may or may not have decked Mark Cavendish during a high-speed sprint finish in Vittel on Tuesday, here were two very different ways of punishing (or not) a sport’s contestants.

And both, undeniably, set a precedent in their respective sports.

If you’re not familiar with the Tour de France case, World Champion Sagan was disqualified from the planet’s biggest bike race for causing a massive crash (resulting in a broken shoulder to his rival) on the approach to the finish line.

Interestingly, the arguably very harsh decision to disqualify him from the entire event was made because Sagan “had put several other riders involved in the crash in danger”. So it’s fair to say it was a consequences-led decision.

The actual on-track Vettel-Hamilton consequences in Baku amounted to very little. Both continued unaffected, their collision in no way involved or endangered anyone else.

And with Vettel being punished at the time, with a 10s stop/go, that makes the Paris judgement valid – albeit on the opposite end of the lenient/harsh spectrum to Sagan’s DQ. In cycling's case, they'd warned riders, pre-event, that reckless sprinting would not be tolerated. And this most certainly lays down its law.

I refer you to Jonathan Noble’s four key questions after the Vettel verdict for some extra insight on what the Paris ruling means for F1.

My focus from here is on the F1 system...

Lack of consistency

I do have an issue with the way judgements are currently made in Formula 1: One human mind will not always agree with another.

How can there be consistency of decisions inside F1 across a season when the individuals involved change from race to race? And why can't we see for ourselves the data that decisions are based on – like Lewis Hamilton's throttle trace in Baku?

The advent of former drivers making decisions on blame for accidents has certainly improved matters. Do I trust the calls and integrity of the former racers? Absolutely.

But do I think their calls are consistent across the season? Well, how can they be when it’s a different person every race? It’s an unrealistic expectation of the current system.

I understand some benefits of changing them around – so there’s less scope for accusations of bias, fallouts or personal vendettas – but I’ll take consistency over that any day. People are always going to have an opinion on perceived bias, whomever it is.

Also, when you look at this list of 2017 stewards, and knowing some of their personalities, I reckon at least one would have insisted on Vettel being black flagged in Baku, unlike Sullivan decided on the day...

2017 F1 driver stewards

Race	Steward
Australia	Derek Warwick
China	Mika Salo
Bahrain	Danny Sullivan
Russia	Mika Salo
Spain	Tom Kristensen
Monaco	Derek Warwick
Canada	Derek Daly
Azerbaijan	Danny Sullivan

Photo by: LAT Images

“Dated and no longer valid”

It’s a topic that Sir Jackie Stewart raised on Motorsport.tv’s The Flying Lap following the Azerbaijan race.

“Currently the manner in which the FIA approaches this is dated and no longer valid,” he opined of the stewarding system. “The [driver stewards] are very seldom the same from track to track.

“If you had, and they would have to be paid the correct amount of money, a retired racing driver – it could be [ex-F1 and IndyCar star Alex] Zanardi for example – then you would have someone with intimate knowledge and continuity of judgement.”

As I mentioned, I agree with Sir Jackie on this one, and I don’t actually care if it’s Zanardi, or Kristensen, or Warwick, or anyone else on the current roster – I trust each of them to play a straight bat. But I feel it needs to be one of them, all of the time.

Sure, it’s a big ask to get someone to commit to all the Grands Prix on the calendar, but that’s a 20th Century way of looking at it. How about using technology to help here…

The NBA example

In American basketball’s premier professional league, the NBA, increases in video technology have been embraced year on year.

The latest step, inaugurated in 2014-15, is the NBA’s state-of-the-art video replay centre in Secaucas, New Jersey. On-court referees can request clarification from 15 different ‘triggers’ – from serious offences to simply double-checking line calls.

The replay-review process swiftly gathers together all the TV and CCTV angles of the incident in question. These are then beamed back to the referees, so better decisions can be made.

So imagine that a similar F1 video replay centre could be based, for example, at London’s Biggin Hill Airport where FOM’s TV operation is based. This would present easy access to a permanent driver steward – who could be based there, so he wouldn’t have to trek around the world.

He could then make any big calls in a low-pressure environment, with all the angles he could wish for, and a decision could then be rapidly relayed back to the regular stewards on site for the process of action/no action as recommended.

Unlike basketball, there would be no stopping the game repeatedly, though!

Charlotte Hornets vs. Miami Heat in NBA play-offs

Photo by: Charles Bradley

What difference would that make?

Here’s the clincher for me: the NBA’s replay centre has an open line of communication with the broadcast crew for each game. Basketball TV producer Frank DiGraci says: “This helps our storytelling in a number of ways.

“One: We’re actually going to see the angles used for review. Two: We see the process, so our fans and viewers get a live shot into the room. Three: We can parlay that back to our audience by speaking directly to the replay centre.”

Imagine that in F1? Sounds like the kind of added fan insight that Liberty Media is looking for, and the transparency any regulator would crave too.

And isn’t this also something that’s ripe for social media exploitation? Having decisions published as a second-screen experience during races would be a great innovation.

Conclusion

So if we had a permanent driver steward, you'd get more consistent decisions. If you had a replay centre too, then the fans would get the opportunity to see justice in motion – and it would be a great device for creating conversations on Twitter.

We keep getting told that stewards have more information than we get on TV, but it’s simply not good enough that we don’t get the benefit of seeing the info too.

Just like we will all want to see Vettel’s lips move on Thursday when he finally makes that public apology… Seeing, and hearing, is believing. 

Photo by: XPB Images