Hamilton said he hoped Max would ignore the punishment and certainly wouldn’t do it if it was him. I reckon the drivers are pretty much behind Verstappen on this.
Because they are all spoiled children! I suspect they don’t like the idea that the FIA might have found a punishment that actually hurts them rather than a fine and the overreaction from the drivers will just tell the FIA they’ve found a way to control them. Who’d have thought that being told to do something “useful” with your time would be such a punishment. I noticed last night he was ranting that he already does useful stuff for the sport including having spent HALF AN HOUR with some junior stewards earlier this year to support their training!
Did he screw-up the presser? I thought it was refreshingly non-corporate TBH.
Its a live press conference broadcast on media around the world, including in many nations who are much more prudish than we are in the UK about swearing. The business reality of F1 is that those are particular growth markets for them. if you don’t want to be in “business” of F1 then don’t drive an F1 car. You can’t complain your sport is too corporate when that’s exactly why you make millions.
I’d rather drivers express themselves honestly than have them be bland and make the sorts of non-comment that you see in other sports.
But you don’t need to say the car is “F****D” to say that there’s a problem with it. Indeed it actually adds no insight to the problem. Is it handling, acceleration, breaking, etc. I get why he’s not happy, when he had a great car he was winning, nor he’s having to fight to be on the podium. A more mature response could have got that across without swearing, but if I was Horner I’d not be happy even if he’d said “the car just isn’t right” – a bit of press training would teach him that you don’t throw your team under the bus like that, especially when they are the ones tightening the bolts on your 200mph plastic box. The corporate response would have been something like “some of the changes we’ve made to the car this season haven’t brought us the improvements we hoped they would, the guys are working really hard to try and catch up, but that is F1 – we only see how successful they’ve been once the lights go green. I know we will take the data from the weekend and use it to make more improvements for the next race. Its not ideal for me, but it certainly makes it more interesting for the spectators.” There’s loads of opportunity outside the press conference for him to show his personality.
I don’t mind the FIA having a word and saying “Can you all mind your P’s & Q’s please”,
The FIA ruling strongly suggests that all drivers have previously been warned: “But, as this topic has been raised before and is well known by the competitors, the Stewards determined to order a greater penalty than previously”
but to try to impose a sanction is really treating them like children.
Because they behave like spoilt children! Its not surprising F1 drivers behave like kids – they live in a weird bubble like premiership footballers etc, but sometimes kids need told to behave and they need some form of sanction that makes them try to avoid doing it again. Other kids watching need to see that sometimes being a smart arse isn’t actually that smart.
