The controversial race that caused all the FIA stewards to resign

Last weekend marked 25 years since the dramatic race at Silverstone that resulted in all of the FIA stewards resigning from their jobs.

The 1998 British Grand Prix saw title rivals Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen go head to head, with the Finn having started the race from pole position in his McLaren. A dominant first half of the race saw Hakkinen build a 49-second lead over Schumacher, but heavy rain meant the second half of the race resulted in intense drama.

A high-speed 360-degree spin at Bridge resulted in Hakkinen damaging his front wing, just before the Safety Car was deployed due to the heavy rain. The race resumed with 10 laps to go, with Hakkinen clearly struggling for pace due to the damage to his MP4/13.

A sequence of events results in a time penalty for Michael Schumacher

The race resumed on Lap 50, with Hakkinen leading from Benetton’s Giancarlo Fisichella, Schumacher in third, and the other Benetton of Alex Wurz in fourth place.

With the Safety Car peeling into the pits, Schumacher passed Fisichella into Copse and set off in pursuit of Hakkinen and, with the Finn under pressure due to his compromised car, slid off at Becketts and handed the lead to the Ferrari driver.

Schumacher quickly pulled away at a rapid rate as it became a race of survival for Hakkinen, who came under pressure from the other Ferrari of Eddie Irvine, but there was more drama to come as Schumacher was given a 10-second time penalty.

This was for overtaking Wurz during the Safety Car period, with Schumacher passing on the inside of Club.

But, with the laps ticking away, Schumacher didn’t come into the pits to serve the penalty. Instead, he pulled into the pitlane on the very last lap, stopped at his pit box for 10 seconds, and resumed – he had already crossed the start/finish line before reaching his pit box.

正如所预期的那样,导致了upr的情况oar as everyone tried to figure out what had just happened – had Ferrari served the penalty correctly, and should Mika Hakkinen be the rightful winner?

Ferrari confused by wording of penalty notice

There was no denying that Schumacher had done what he was accused of doing – he had passed the Benetton driver under yellow flag conditions at Club corner. The stewards, reviewing the incident, decided that Schumacher should be penalised 10 seconds. This decision was reached 24 minutes after the incident.

25分钟的体育法规规定限制utes for penalties to be handed out, but Ferrari were not notified of the penalty for a further seven minutes – meaning 31 minutes after Schumacher snuck up the inside of Wurz.

Further muddying of the waters happened as the wording of the notice didn’t clarify whether it was a 10-second stop/go penalty (as were common at the time) – a harsher penalty – or whether it was merely an addition of 10 seconds to Schumacher’s race time at the chequered flag.

Footage from the time showed Ross Brawn and Jean Todt questioning the penalty notice with the FIA official who had come out to visit their pitwall, with Ferrari arguing that the official didn’t know to which rule the penalty referred and that the handwritten note had not made it clear whether Article 57C or 57E was applicable – one issued a stop/go penalty, and the other a time penalty.

In an attempt to ensure they conformed with other regulations, Ferrari brought Schumacher in on the final lap to ensure they satisfied the demand that drivers stop within three laps of being notified of a penalty.

By crossing the finish line in the pits, rather than taking the chequered flag on track, the decision was made to apply a 10-second time penalty to his race time – only for McLaren to protest as the stewards could only impose that penalty for incidents that occurred in the last 12 laps of the race (Schumacher’s transgression had happened 17 laps from the end).

McLaren argued that a 10-second stop/go time penalty was the correct punishment, which was not served, and that Hakkinen may have won the race by the time Schumacher had come through the pitlane had he served that penalty.

“We weren’t advised that there was a penalty imposed,” said team boss Ron Dennis.

“For that reason, we were pacing Mika because he had sustained some front-wing damage. So we could have pushed, which is a normal thing, if there’s a penalty, we’re informed.

The penalty was taken after the start/finish line and, again, that seems to be wrong. But we’ll have to make quite sure about the regulations and then we’ll take whatever steps are appropriate.”

As a 10-second time penalty could not be applied, as per the Sporting Regulations, and a 10-second stop/go penalty had not been served nor handed out during the permitted time window, the stewards opted to retract any punishment to Schumacher.

The mistake had been made by the stewards, with no way in the regulations to punish Schumacher correctly for what he’d done. With no punishment applied to Schumacher for the rule breach, McLaren immediately lodged an appeal as the precedent was for stop/go penalties for such incidents.

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Appeal process results in FIA stewards resigning

此案在国际汽联的国际法庭开庭of Appeal, which revealed some further information about the chain of events that led to the confusion.

Race Director Charlie Whiting had considered there to be insufficient evidence regarding the Schumacher/Wurz overtake and had asked Race Steward Roger Peart not to take action before the end of the race.

However, Peart, together with the other stewards, handed out the decision to impose a 10-second time penalty on Schumacher on a typed memo, with a handwritten addition citing Article 57E. They had not asked Race Control to inform the teams via the timing monitors.

It was during the 58th lap (of 60) that Ferrari were informed in writing of the time penalty imposed by the stewards, a notification which should also have been transmitted on the monitors.

Ferrari pitted Schumacher to undergo the 10-second penalty despite the fact the penalty wording did not suggest a stop/go. Crossing the start/finish line in the pits on the final lap was not prohibited in the Regulations.

McLaren had requested a reclassification to award the win to Hakkinen, with Schumacher excluded for having failed to serve the penalty within three laps, or simply to have Schumacher relegated to second place.

Ferrari’s argued they had complied “with commendable scrupulousness to the Sporting Regulations” by bringing in Schumacher for a stop/go in the final three laps, despite the fact Article 57E, which had been mentioned wrongly in the penalty notice, authorised them to finish the race without a stop/go.

In their to and fro, McLaren claimed that if the decision had been notified on time, Schumacher’s stop/go would have cost him 29 seconds and given the win to Hakkinen. Ferrari’s retort was that, even if the stewards had notified them earlier and the stop/go served immediately, Schumacher would have used the track to cross the line and not cost himself a further 10 seconds from slowing down to enter the pitlane before the finish line.

The ICA decided that, since 25 minutes had already passed since the incident, a stop/go was unenforceable, and all other arguments were merely suppositions that could not be verified.

All penalties were rescinded, with no penalties applied to Ferrari.

In light of the furore, race stewards Howard Lapsley, Nazir Hoosein, and Roger Peart all voluntarily handed in their FIA Steward licences to the World Motor Sport Council, having faced suspension over their handling of the British Grand Prix at an FIA disciplinary meeting.

FIA President Max Mosley leapt to their defence, saying all three were “extremely experienced and competent officials who were working under extreme pressure in dangerous weather conditions at Silverstone.”

Peart would return to race stewarding within a few years, as well as becoming President of the FIA Circuit Commission. As President of the Canadian ASN, he helped with the re-design of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the 1970s, and made it onto the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame. He retired from stewarding in 2018, and passed away in early 2023.

Hoosein, a friend of Mosley who had helped him gain votes from Asian FIA members through the 1990s, became a member of the World Motor Sport Council from 2000, representing China. He became Vice President of the FIA for Sport in 2005 as a member of Max Mosley’s board, before becoming chief steward for the World Rally Championship. He died in May 2019.

Lapsley returned to work for Motorsport UK, and was awarded their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

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