Ex-Ferrari engineer Smedley calls for augmented steward group to end post-race verdicts

Rob Smedley, the former Ferrari and Williams race engineer, has called on Formula 1 to create an “augmented” stewarding group capable of ruling on routine incidents during races rather than deferring them until after the chequered flag.

Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast alongside broadcaster Jake Humphrey and former Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer, Smedley argued that the current FIA stewards are simply too stretched to adjudicate every clash in real time without disrupting the race itself.

“You watch some of these ‘[Incident] will be investigated after the race’ messages, and you just think this is fairly obvious,” Smedley said. “The reason why they do this, if you go behind the scenes, is because all the stewards are super busy with the race. You can’t stop the race and say, ‘Let the stewards decide.’ But there could be an augmented steward group that is able to process these much faster.”

Under his proposal, post-race investigations would still exist but would be reserved exclusively for genuinely complex matters — particularly technical infringements that can only be confirmed through physical measurement once the car returns to the garage. Smedley cited examples such as excessive plank wear, rear wings at incorrect heights, illegal slot-gap dimensions, and underweight cars as the category of breach that legitimately requires post-race scrutineering.

“It is a technical sport, and because of that, you can only arbitrate on the technicalities of the sport after the race because you’ve got to measure,” he said. “You’ve got to take that into account.”

Smedley acknowledged that provisional results must remain a feature of the sport to allow officials to correct any regulatory breach that goes undetected during the race, but he drew a clear distinction between those technical checks and on-track incidents that are, in his view, straightforward enough to be resolved before the podium ceremony.

The proposal reflects a broader frustration among fans and paddock figures with the pace of F1’s judicial process, particularly in seasons where championship margins have been tight and late penalties have altered final standings. Whether the FIA would consider formalising a secondary panel of stewards with a dedicated live-review remit remains to be seen.