Alonso calls for changes to F1 penalties

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso believes changes need to be made to the way Formula One races are regulated.

The average F1 fan could be forgiven for being dumbfounded by the number and type of penalties being meted out by race stewards this season.

In contrast to the split-second decisions made by drivers on the track, it takes a comparative age for the stewards to conclude whether any given incident merits a penalty.

And when those punishments are given out, the fan is kept in the dark on the decision-making process and barred from seeing the myriad camera angles used by the stewards.

Alonso, the winner of the last two races, would like to see the stewards -- who are not full-time professionals and who change each race -- given another pair of eyes. Read more about F1 at The Circuit.

"I think it's a good idea to have an ex-driver with the stewards just to help them, just because the decisions they take are difficult to know from the outside if you never drove a Formula One car," he said.

"We probably believe that there are too many penalties because sometimes the races are decided by the stewards. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes they are fair."

Lewis Hamilton's 25-second penalty for cutting a corner in his duel with Kimi Raikkonen for the lead of the Belgian Grand Prix was perhaps this season's most controversial penalty.

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But there have been others that are baffling to the layperson, ones which appear to have driven the 'racing incident' out of the sport.

Take Sebastien Bourdais' penalty at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, which, like Hamilton at Spa, saw a costly 25 seconds added to his race time.

He was accelerating out of the pitlane, which feeds into the first corner, where Felipe Massa, slightly behind, was turning in. The Ferrari driver did not back down and spun after hitting the Toro Rosso.

"I was exiting the pits on the inside. I'm racing for positions, I don't owe him anything," an unrepentant Bourdais told SpeedTV.

There is also a lack of clarity as to why certain penalties are given. A driver is handed a 10-second stop-go penalty for entering the pitlane when it is closed, which has happened this season to unfortunate drivers close to running out of fuel.

That kind of penalty eats up more time than a drive-through, one of which was given to Massa when he drove into Hamilton at Fuji -- ostensibly an act carrying greater race-changing ramifications.

"I think we need more transparency in some of these decisions, more explanations as to the reasons for the penalties," wrote Red Bull's David Coulthard on ITV's F1 Web site.

Consistency, or the lack of it, is a huge bugbear for the teams. On two occasions this season Massa has been released from a pitstop into the path of an oncoming car, but only once was he given the accepted drive-through penalty.

"For the drivers, what will help is to have consistency in the penalties," Alonso added. "If one time you do something and you get penalized, it's not possible that the next time you do the same thing and you don't get penalized.

"I think we ask for a little bit more consistency, even if they are very harsh."

Raikkonen, the current world champion, was philosophical about the recent rash of penalties.

"There is always going to be talk about penalties and stuff, but that's unfortunately going to be a big part of Formula One," shrugged the Ferrari driver.

"It's not always best for the sport, but we're here to race and try to get past people and sometimes you get penalties out of it, even when you don't think it's right. But that's how it goes."