Johnny Herbert Releases Statement After Being Ousted From FIA

Former FIA steward Johnny Herbert has released a statement after being ousted from Formula 1's governing body for his alleged ties with a betting company. The FIA announced yesterday that it was parting ways with Herbert. This comes months after the former steward made headlines for his strict rulings on Max Verstappen's infractions during the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Herbert, who was also an F1 driver, was popular for his controversial opinions on matters concerning drivers and FIA rulings. In recent years, several former F1 drivers have struck commercial deals that involve commenting on controversial decisions to generate viral news, ultimately promoting the betting companies they are partnered with. Announcing his ousting, the FIA released a statement that read:

“It is with regret that we announce today that Johnny Herbert will no longer fulfil the position of F1 driver steward for the FIA.

“Johnny is widely respected and brought invaluable experience and expertise to his role. However, after discussion, it was mutually agreed that his duties as an FIA steward and that of a media pundit were incompatible.

“We thank him for his service and wish him well in his future endeavours.”

Herbert has also released a statement after parting ways with the governing body on Instagram, expressing gratitude for the opportunity. He said:

"I'm very grateful for the opportunity of being an FIA Driver Steward and I have thoroughly enjoyed the role I have been involved in over the years. It is a difficult job and there are tough decisions that have to be made.

"As Stewards, we have and will continue to treat both drivers and team personnel with the utmost respect and remain impartial at all times during all F1 Grand Prix weekends.

"Finally, l'm very grateful to the President and everyone at the FIA for the opportunities that I have been given."

Herbert's exit comes days after FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis' revelation that the organization would soon move to a model of having paid stewards, as opposed to the current model where it relies on volunteers. He said:

"It's probably getting a bit unfair to just rely on people to do it out of their good heart, and that's what we have now. We want to go to a more professional body in the future. That's not to exclude volunteers, but it's to have a body that can spend the Monday morning after a race analysing every single decision, making sure it was reached correctly, seeing what could be improved, etc.

"That will be combined with a more powerful remote centre, where more monitoring will take place for range of offences, and all of that will be linked together. That's the general target.

"Ultimately, [the officials department] will bring up a wider pool of people available to do it, and will provide that they will have more time to spend on analysing everything and so on. Just to be clear, that's without taking anything away from the group we have now, which is very experienced and has been serving for 20 years."