Sky Sports pundit 'offered' new role by F1 star

An influential F1 star has namedropped a Sky Sports pundit as a voice of common sense in the sport, hinting that he would be one of his ideal potential future stewards for races.

The FIA met with drivers on Thursday night in Lusail to discuss driving standards guidelines, after a number of high-profile incidents this year when drivers have disagreed with stewarding decisions.

Charles Leclerc has said that the close adherence to the guidelines 'makes it difficult to have common sense sometimes', with a number of penalties being brought up in this week's meeting.

Asked about the necessity of the guidelines this week, Carlos Sainz – also head of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association – praised the 'very good' analysis by some drivers on TV, specifically naming Sky's Karun Chandhok and Anthony Davidson.

Sky pundit: I'm not putting down my microphone yet

"Again, I’m going to speak as Carlos Sainz, not as GPDA here," he said. "I’m going to give you as honest an answer as possible. I think recently after races I’ve seen some analysis done of quite a lot of the incidents. Some of them by Karun Chandhok, some of them by Jolyon Palmer, some of them by Anthony Davidson.

"And every time I see this analysis that they do and the verdict that they give – from racing drivers that have been recently racing – I think they do a very good analysis and they put the blame correctly most of the time on who actually has the blame or if it’s actually just a racing incident.

"My future ideal is no guidelines and people that are able to judge these sorts of incidents as well as these three people do after the races. Again, this is just my opinion, but I’m quite impressed at the job some of the broadcasters do after a race with this in-depth analysis of each of the incidents and how they apply blame or no blame into certain scenarios.

"I think that’s a level of analysis and a level of ‘stewardness’, if you want to call it that way, that I think is very high level. Probably doesn’t mean we’ll agree 100 per cent on the cases that these three ex-drivers give, but I think a lot of times, they are very close—90 per cent, let’s say, correct. And if I had to go and see Formula 1 in the future on the stewarding level, this is more or less the level that I would appreciate."

After being showed video footage of Sainz talking on Sky Sports F1 Paddock Uncut, Chandhok immediately said: “I’m not going to be a steward. If that was going to be your next question.”

He added: “I was involved with conversations around changes to the drivers standards guidelines and trying to reform it. I went to the drivers briefing and the GPDA in Mexico, but ultimately I’m a nobody in that process.

“This is a process that the FIA need to deal with internally and work with the drivers. Because where this is all coming from, we’ve had a few [incidents] now haven’t we? Sainz was involved in Zandvoort...I still believe Oscar in Brazil shouldn’t have been penalised there...

“There’s an increasing sense of frustration building in the driver community, but I’m holding onto my microphone and I’m not leaving you yet.”

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