F1 drivers take risks today that would have led to "a bollocking" in my era - Sir Jackie Stewart

Sir Jackie Stewart

F1 drivers take risks today that would have led to "a bollocking" in my era - Stewart

First-corner collisions highlight the "liberties" taken by certain drivers

Sam Hall

Sunday 10 May 2020 09:45 Updated: 10:51

Sir Jackie Stewart believes today's Formula 1 drivers get away with more reckless manoeuvres that would have led to "a bollocking" during his era.

Throughout the later years of his F1 career, Stewart was a leading campaigner for a safer F1 as safety standards had failed to keep pace with an increase in speeds that led to a rise in the number of deaths.

Stewart claims that if the threat of a fatal accident back then was not enough to put a driver off making a dangerous move, then the peer review system of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) did the job.

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"If someone behaved badly, the GPDA at the very next race had the person come in in front of everybody and gave them such a bollocking and threat that they should never do anything of that nature again. It was a much more severe penalty for everyone!" Stewart told the F1 Nation podcast.

The three-time champion and former team owner feels drivers these days feel they can get away with a move as they know they are driving the safest cars the sport has seen.

Stewart added: "There are more first-corner accidents today than there were in our day.

"People take liberties today that we could never have afforded and never have done. They take risks because they know it's safer today.

"People do take liberties in a fashion we couldn't have seen before. The cars were more fragile, the cockpits weren't so robust."

One incident that particularly angered Stewart was in 2016 and the coming together of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg on lap one of the Spanish Grand Prix which led to both retiring from the race as a result of the collision.

Stewart commented: "I think the worst example was probably with Lewis and Nico Rosberg in Spain when at the start of the race they collided with each other, and part of it on the grass still trying to drive it."

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