Race Direction and FIM Stewards: Vito Ippolito explains

FIM President Vito Ippolito has given an interview in which he explains what has changed in terms of the disciplinary procedures since 2016.

Following a process that began in 2016, the FIM Stewards are now responsible for disciplinary sanctions, while the Race Direction takes care of the management of the race. What is the reason for this decision?

Vito Ippolito, FIM President: “In the last years we were thinking how to improve the management of MotoGP™ during the races. In the past, race direction had all the responsibility; not only to manage the races, but also to penalise the riders.

“We were thinking it would be much better to separate these two functions because the race direction is very busy, there is a big responsibility but the management of the race have to decide how to place the grid to show a red a flag to intervene in many many delicate parts of the races, take decisions about whether the race is wet or dry and the judges are the FIM stewards. Now we separate these two functions because of the way you approach the race, the event is different because now you are a judge – a judge is different from a race director, for example.”

What’s the role of the FIM Stewards and how are they chosen?

VI: “They are expert people. Their job is only to penalise. They have a lot of experience, of course, and I can add that after each race there is an analysis; a study of what happened during the race, about the behavior of the riders or about any other kind of problem around the penalties. Then we have many stewards; more than twenty but for each championship, in this case MotoGP™, we choose a small part of these stewards, one of them is permanent for each race and the others rotate but, in any case, there is a short choice of stewards for the MotoGP™.”

What are the advantages of this new structure?

VI: “The advantage is that, because the MotoGP™ Race Direction is too busy, they haven’t got enough time to manage the race at the same time and penalise, we were thinking that if we separate these two structures, we will have better results because at the end the justice that the stewards do and they can impose penalties during the event, which is extremely important. We must not only be fair but show that we’re fair and for this reason we decided that we would separate this function.

“Then, since last year, it is the FIM stewards that are responsible for all penalties during MotoGP™.”