Shades of 'Jewelry Gate' in FIA's ill-executed review of Lewis Hamilton's track crossing incident at the 2023 F1 Qatar GP

FIA launching a review of Lewis Hamilton's track crossing incident at the 2023 F1 Qatar GP seems to have rubbed everyone the wrong way and there is merit to it. The driver's crash with teammate George Russell at the start of the race in Qatar saw his race end prematurely. At this point, Sky F1 broadcaster David Croft noticed the Mercedes driver going across a live track.

According to the sporting code, you cannot do that and after the race, stewards issued a fine to Lewis Hamilton. The driver was rightly apologetic for it. All of this seems to be done by the book and there's nothing that would raise question marks. Yesterday, however, a week after everything had been done and dusted, FIA released a statement that left the F1 world outraged.

The review has been launched on the incident in Qatar, which might not have caused much issue if not for the language.

Lewis Hamilton being singled out by the FIA?

In a strangely worded quote released by the FIA, the governing body of the sport wanted to review the incident keeping in mind Lewis Hamilton's 'role model' status. The statement read:

"The FIA is revisiting the incident in which Lewis Hamilton crossed a live track during the Qatar Grand Prix. The FIA notes that Lewis was apologetic during the subsequent Stewards hearing in to the incident and acknowledged that the crossing was a serious safety breach. However, in view of his role model status, the FIA is concerned about the impression his actions may have created on younger drivers.”

The governing body has not come back with a clarification for what the 'role model' status means here. More importantly, why is Lewis Hamilton alone being singled out for an incident when there is seemingly a scenario where Logan Sargeant has also done something similar in a previous race?

There's nothing wrong with the FIA if it wants to review an incident. There should be no issue with that. If in case it wants to understand better how such a situation needs to be handled in the future and if the fine is not a suitable enough penalty, then that is a discussion that could be had.

The issue is the reasoning given where Lewis Hamilton's influential nature seems to be the driving force. FIA seems to have defeated a well-thought-out move with a poorly executed statement.

Shades of 'Jewelry Gate'

One can't help but look at the similarities with the poorly executed process through which the FIA implemented the no-jewelry rule last season. Looking back at the imposition of the 'no jewelry while racing' rule, even if we assume that the governing body's intention was right, the execution was done in such a poor manner that the entire process turned the FIA into a laughing stock.

There was an initial date set for the implementation of the rule beyond which no driver was supposed to wear them while driving. However, continued extensions and a lack of FIA's interaction with the media while trying to communicate what the process was, left everyone siding with Lewis Hamilton.

Sebastian Vettel was one of the more vocal proponents of the whole process as he openly claimed Lewis was being targeted. Was he being targeted? We cannot answer that question but what we can do is look at a poorly managed implementation that left the FIA in a bad light.

Lewis was singled out and the whole process dragged on for more than 6 months. At that time, the FIA could have easily come out with a clear message about why it was pushing for this. It could have tried to explain why this was not a Lewis Hamilton issue but a safety issue. Unfortunately, none of that was done and many felt that the Mercedes driver was being wrongfully targeted.

FIA has committed the same mistake and its silence doesn't help

Looking at the press release, it is the same mistake that the FIA has committed this time around as well. Analyzing a particular infringement so that it does not happen again is a perfectly logical thing to do. Claiming that you're doing this because of the 'influential nature of the driver' is absolutely not the way to go about it.

This is especially the case because the F1 grid is now filled with superstars. Max Verstappen has an entire country behind him. Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris are superstars in their own rights. Fernando Alonso is still the king of Spanish motorsports and he's as big a name in F1 as he has ever been. It is at this stage one needs to question, 'Why Lewis?'

There could be a perfect answer to this question and one would hope FIA has a legitimate reason behind this. However, the lack of communication is dumbfounding. The press release has been met with criticism by everyone in the F1 fraternity and rightly so.

It will be interesting to see what's next because the FIA cannot afford another poorly executed move where the biggest star of the sport gets singled out unfairly.