Johnny Herbert will now no longer be part of the FIA’s pool of driver stewards, after the governing body announced they will not be continuing with his services ahead of the 2025 season.
It comes after a controversial year for Herbert in which he got himself into a spat with Max Verstappen, after he criticised the Dutchman for his actions against Lando Norris at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Herbert was later criticised by Jos Verstappen for his comments, who unleashed into a tirade and accused him of bias and insisted that stewards should not talk to the press.
Now the FIA has admitted that Herbert’s duties are ‘incompatible’ with his work as a ‘media pundit’ after he was found to have been acting as a pundit for betting websites while also conducting his stewards duties.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes it was the right decision by the FIA, branding his role as a pundit alongside steward as ‘inappropriate’ (via Autosport).
Discussing his dismissal on the Love Cars on the Grid podcast, former F1 driver Tiff Needell thinks the sport risks going the same way as football if they do not allow drivers who are pundits to adjudicate on penalties.
Tiff Needell warns F1 risks turning into football after Johnny Herbert was sacked
Needell believes Herbert should still be allowed to carry out his duties, given that there is a limited amount of driver stewards who are willing to do the job because of the costs involved.
He also warned that F1 and motorsport could go the way of controversial decisions in football, whereby the Video Assisted Referee has often called fouls on incidents when there wasn’t any.
“They’ve looked at this whole steward thing, someone must have turned a screw and said: ‘Johnny Herbert says things on gambling websites so he can’t be a steward’ – well why not? You have to have drivers as stewards. They’re all voluntary, but the likes of Herbert and others who attend the races earn on the side doing their punditry for Sky or gambling websites,” said Needell.
“We’re now going to have the same thing as football where you have all these referees deciding things, then when you get to Match of the Day the footballers look at it and say ‘Well obviously it’s not a foul!’ because they know the tricks footballers play. The referees don’t have that experience, so they come with a monotonous brain.”
Should F1 have permanent stewards?
Calls for F1 to have permanent stewards has increased after Herbert was dismissed, with the talk gravitating towards having a Professional Game Match Official’s (PGMOL) type body for motorsport.
It comes after a desire for there to be more consistency in the type of penalties handed out to drivers, after some were penalised differently for the same offence in the last few years.
At the moment there is panel of four stewards that attend each race, which is made up of the driver steward, two local stewards, and a permanent member.
Whether having a PGMOL-type body would fix the issue of consistency is controversial, given that it has not led to more consistent calls in football. It also brings with it a level of controversy outside of sporting activities, as has been seen with members of the PGMOL recently.
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