Kimi Raikkonen believes the level of stewarding remains the same despite working towards a ‘let drivers race’ approach.
Earlier in the year in Bahrain, it was revealed a meeting had taken place between the FIA and drivers to set out boundaries for racing incidents which allowed for greater leniency from race officials.
However, after the call to penalise Sebastian Vettel in Canada and Daniel Ricciardo in France, extra scrutiny has been put on every decision.
“If you read anything from the beginning of the year they were saying, ‘we’ll let people race more’ but if you purely take that, checking all the incidents that’s not what happened,” Raikkonen said at Silverstone.
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“I think it’s always been part of racing, sometimes it works well for you, sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s how it goes, it’s part of the game.
“We’ve been in the Stewards a few weeks in a row, but it can always go either way. Every incident is different than any others.”
The situation does appear to have changed slightly in the past two races, however, with Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc pushing the boundaries in fierce battles in Austria and Silverstone.
But FIA race director Michael Masi insists that is not the case.
“The ‘let them race’ philosophy’s been adopted all year, to be quite honest,” new race director Michael Masi told RaceFans.
“I think the nature of the circuit [at Silverstone], the way that it was, yes there was some wheel-to-wheel action but [it’s the] same as it was previously and it’s been judged in exactly the same manner.
“The nature of the way this venue is, it probably makes a perceived view that it’s more of ‘let them race’ but it’s been adopted and applied in exactly the same way that it has been all year.”