FIA May Act After Teams Meeting on Insults

F1 tightens conduct rules after Verstappen’s outbursts, with potential FIA actions looming post-Tuesday’s meeting.

Max Verstappen’s insults and verbal assaults at the Hungarian Grand Prix prompted F1 to crack down on drivers using inappropriate language on the radio.

Verstappen had several tense exchanges with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over the 70 laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix. During these exchanges, numerous words were beeped out by the FOM (which never broadcasts an exchange live but with a slight delay).

For the FOM, the damage is done: fans clearly have a bad example of what happens with the number of beeps not far from the number of words in a sentence!

The Dutch driver even had some choice words for his detractors after the Grand Prix, telling them they could “go fuck themselves.”

As for his view on not being impressed by his choice of words, he stated yesterday, “If people don’t like my language, turn down the volume. Don’t listen to me.”

However, the FIA does not seem to want to turn down the volume and has instead reminded teams to keep their drivers under control.

These radio expletives were discussed at the F1 commission meeting on Tuesday in London, where F1 chief Stefano Domenicali “reminded the teams that it is important to keep in mind that communication is broadcast live during races, and despite the fact that Formula 1 filters what is ultimately heard, a significant number of new fans of the sport are young and, more broadly, the language could be considered offensive or is by nature when filtering must become so extreme.”

Domenicali emphasized that “drivers are role models and must behave accordingly.”

Some team directors highlighted at this meeting that the race stewards do not act consistently with the drivers’ swearing. For example, Yuki Tsunoda was recently fined 40,000 euros for using the word “retard” on the radio.

According to these team directors, summoning Max Verstappen, or other drivers, to the race stewards might be necessary after such outbursts… A scenario Domenicali did not rule out.