Steiner calls for the FIA to rethink ownership of multiple teams

Former Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has called for the FIA to rethink the ownership of multiple F1 teams after Daniel Ricciardo snatched the fastest lap from Lando Norris at the Singapore GP.

With nothing to lose due to his track position, the Visa Cash RB team decided to give Daniel Ricciardo one last hurrah shortly before the end of the Singapore Grand Prix. The Faenza-based outfit brought him back in, bolted on a set of soft tyres and sent him out to chalk up the 17th DHL Fastest Lap of his career.

With a time of 1:34.486, he denied the dominant race winner Lando Norris a potential first Grand Slam. More importantly, though, he deprived the McLaren driver and closest title challenger to Max Verstappen of the bonus point.

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, former Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner said that Formula One needs to reconsider the ownership of multiple teams since it always carries its own difficulties regarding fairness within the sport.

"This fastest lap, it was a little bit weird when it came, you know. I think that the issue there is that in a sport like Formula 1, no owner should have two teams. You never get away from the suspicion that there are team orders between teams, not just within one team.

"If Sauber would have made the fastest lap, would anybody be worried about it? No. The problem lies in that it’s owned by the same owners.

"I guess we have to respect what Red Bull did at the time... Minardi was struggling. They would have gone away without a saviour. So F1 has developed a lot since them days, and for the future, maybe there needs to be a fix to this one that nobody can own two teams.”

He continued: "But I think it shouldn’t be as radical as saying, ‘Oh, in the next Concorde Agreement or commercial agreement, this needs to be sorted’”

"For the future, maybe there needs to be a fix... In the end, you cannot tell them what to do with their teams, but in the future, there needs to be thoughts about that."