Stewards in the crosshairs, Ben Sulayem “Drivers and teams fuel hatred”

Stop the criticism

The FIA, led by its controversial president Mohammed Ben Sulayemis ready to crack down decisively on the criticisms and attacks by drivers, team principals and various team managers towards the race stewardsThe president of the international federation himself communicated this directly from his Instagram profile, explaining that he wanted to adopt a strategy based on greater severity to counteract the drift of insults and online abuse. According to the number one in world motorsport, in fact, there is a correlation between the barbs sometimes launched at stewards via the press by drivers and team principals and the insults of haters on social media.

The President’s Message

“As part of our ongoing fight against online abuse – wrote Ben Sulayem – Recent research has shown that there is a direct link between negative comments from drivers and team members and the increase in online hate and abuse towards stewards. At the last World Motorsport Council, members approved a change in the definition of ‘misconduct’ within the International Sporting Code following incidents where high-profile team members have made statements about match officials inciting abuse”.

The problem of abuse

The FIA ​​President then continued his reflection by underlining that he was firmly aligned with the race officials and be ready to do everything possible to maintain the sport “safe and correct”. It is difficult to understand whether this sudden search for greater severity derives from a single specific episode. Some of Max Verstappen’s behavior had recently caused a lot of discussion, in particular after the Hungarian GP in which he had blatantly attacked the stewards via radio for penalizing him for contact with Lewis Hamilton. Going further back in time, Toto Wolff’s very harsh criticisms of the then Race Director Michael Masi after the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP were ‘famous’. It will be interesting to see, in the next controversial case, if and how drivers and teams who go overboard with protests will be punished.