F1 drivers fire back in swearing row

Formula 1 drivers have hit back at punishments handed out for swearing, calling on FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to treat them like adults.

Defending champion Max Verstappen was sanctioned by motor-racing governing body the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) in September after swearing while describing his car's performance during a press conference in Singapore.

Charles Leclerc then received a €10,000 (£8,200) fine for swearing in Mexico's post-race press conference, although half of the fine was suspended for 12 months provided there are no repeat offences.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Vow of silence'

Three-time world champion and Red Bull driver Verstappen was ordered to perform "work of public interest" as well as pay a €40,000 (£33,000) fine after calling his car "fucked". He retaliated by "offering only basic responses in his next press conference", said talksport.com. He also held an impromptu Q&A session with F1 journalists outside in the paddock, which was not televised, "so that only the FIA, who had broadcast his one-word responses, would feel the effects of his vow of silence".

Verstappen said the row had left him considering his future in the sport. "These kind of things definitely decide my future, if you can't be yourself or you have to deal with these silly things," he said. "I'm now at the stage of my career that you don't want to be dealing with this all the time. It's really tiring."

'Dirty language'

There is a difference between swearing to insult others and the casual use of bad language to describe a situation or inanimate object, said the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA), the trade union of Formula One drivers, in a statement on Instagram. It also urged the FIA president to "consider his own tone and language when talking to our member drivers, or indeed about them, whether in a public forum or otherwise".

Sulayem "made waves" last month, said Reuters, during an interview where he criticised "dirty language" and said drivers should not sound like rappers. Lewis Hamilton criticised the comment for its "stereotypical" language with a "racial element".

The GPDA added that its members were "adults" and "do not need to be given instructions via the media, about matters as trivial as the wearing of jewellery and underpants". This was believed to refer to another recent row in the sport over wearing jewellery, which Hamilton found himself at the centre of due to his iconic nose piercing, and an older issue concerning regulations on fireproof underwear.

Driver fines were "not appropriate" for F1, it added, asking for greater clarification on how the funds from driver fines were spent.