Carlos Sainz names Sky’s F1 analysts as he proposes drastic stewarding idea

Williams F1 driver Carlos Sainz wants to see a dramatic overhaul of F1’s stewarding, believing the current guidelines have only made judging incidents more confusing.

Various incidents and stewarding decisions have been put under the spotlight in 2025.

Recently, Oscar Piastri was handed a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision with Kimi Antonelli at Turn 1 in Brazil. 

As Piastri was deemed to be ‘out of control’ and the incident ruined Charles Leclerc’s race, he was penalised. 

The general consensus was that it was a racing incident, as Antonelli failed to leave adequate room.

In Las Vegas, Lawson escaped a penalty for his aggressive Lap 1 lunge, leading to suggestions of inconsistency. 

Other examples include the stewards not penalising Leclerc or Max Verstappen on the opening lap of the Mexico City Grand Prix, and Sainz’s bizarre penalty at Zandvoort for an incident with Lawson.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, Sainz named three ex-F1 drivers - who are now pundits for Sky and F1TV - as examples of incidents being judged correctly. 

Karun Chandhok and Anthony Davidson have been mainstays of Sky’s UK coverage for years, often using the ‘Skypad’ to analyse incidents.

Sainz praised both of them, as well as F1’s Jolyon Palmer, for their ability to dissect incidents, and the Williams driver believes the sport would benefit from that level of analysis.

“I think recently after the races I’ve seen some analysis done quite a lot of the incidents,” Sainz explained.

“I think there were some of them… Karun Chandhok, in some of them Jolyon Palmer, in some of them Anthony Davidson. 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 just a racing incident.

“My future idea is no guidelines and people that are able to judge this sort of incidents as well as these three people do after races. This is just my opinion but I am quite impressed at the job that some of the broadcasters do after the race with this in-depth analysis of the incidents and how they apply blame or no blame into certain scenarios.

“I think that’s a level of analysis that I think is very high level and probably doesn’t mean we will agree 100 per cent on the cases of what these three ex-drivers give but I think they are a lot of the time they’re very close to being 90 per cent correct. If I would have to go and see F1 in the future, and the stewarding level, this is more or less a level I would appreciate.”

Sainz questions the guidelines

New racing guidelines were implemented following a sequence of incidents involving Verstappen last year. 

Verstappen’s aggressive driving against Lando Norris led to an overhaul of the rules. 

Sainz has stressed the need to find “solutions” ahead of 2026.

“I think this year there has been quite a bit of confusion regarding quite a few of them,” Sainz explained.

“I think we need to sit together and go through them and analyse them calmly, out of the heat of the moment like we are now on a Thursday before a race and try to come up with a better solution for the future.

“My personal opinion is that there’s potential to do better and the guidelines themselves have created more problems than solutions to a lot of issues that have happened this year in the ways we judge incidents and there’s been barely any room for racing incidents.

“It’s always been white or black because we’ve been supported by the guidelines and they’ve not allowed for racing incidents to be judged as racing incidents. There was always a tyre in front or behind a mirror, or a tyre in the front or behind a front or rear tyre - whatever the guidelines say but I don’t know them by heart.

“For me, it’s been in that sense not a successful implementation of those guidelines. That’s what we need to discuss and see if there’s any other solution.”