For or against? The arguments behind FIA’s controversial new rules

The FIA recently revealed guidelines for the stewards to impose major penalties upon competitors within F1 for transgressions related to their behaviour.

Last week, the FIA published an addendum to the 2025 International Sporting Code (ISC), which outlines rules, regulations, and guidelines for all motorsport series under its remit.

What changes were made to the FIA’s International Sporting Code?

The new ‘Appendix B’ outlines guidelines for race stewards at all FIA events – including Formula 1 – on available penalties and punishments available to them to hand out to offending drivers and competitors.

The new Appendix pertains to quite subjective areas governing competitor conduct, use of language, incitement, or the making of comments pertaining to political or religious beliefs, as well as governing the very vague area of “moral injury”.

The guidelines see the stewards given the potential to hand out huge penalties – ranging from a €40,000 fine for a first offence, all the way to €120,000 fines, championship suspension, and championship points deductions for a third offence.

The wording of the guidelines is quite broad, leading to fears that drivers or competitors could be hauled before the stewards for quite severe penalties over what could be quite minor transgressions unrelated to their on-track behaviour, and gives the governing body the ability – however theoretical – to hand out penalties in what could be viewed as a clampdown on free speech.

Let’s explore the arguments for and against the introduced changes to the International Sporting Code.

The arguments for

Given the huge growth of Formula 1 in recent years, it’s not surprising that the sport’s authorities might want to evaluate ways to ensure its product is seen as squeaky clean and family-friendly, while also not being seen as taking any position when it comes to more divisive topics.

To this end, it thus makes sense that the FIA would want to find ways to ensure the drivers and competitors behave themselves, particularly when it comes to avoiding topics like bad language uttered on its world feed broadcasts, drivers showing political leanings, or making comments about race officials which call into question their authority or values.

As Sky F1 broadcaster Martin Brundle pointed out recently, the drivers are all role models, whether they like it or not. On top of that, they are employees of huge, multi-national organisations and their success in their chosen line of work largely comes about as a result of being involved in the FIA’s ecosystem.

In our everyday lives, employees and representatives of any business are expected to conform to certain rules and societal expectations. Expressing a political view, for instance, could easily land an everyday office employee in front of HR or their boss – so why can’t the same apply to a Formula 1 driver?

Similarly, swearing has its place in society but, in general, doesn’t tend to be looked upon favourably in polite company. While it’s completely understandable for Max Verstappen, as an example, to be comfortable using certain expletives, as he did in the press conference in Singapore, it’s only by dint of his position of success in the sport that he did so. Would he have been as unrepentant for cursing in an FIA press conference as a fresh-faced rookie? One suspects not.

Contrast his unwillingness to back down with the immediate contrition from Charles Leclerc for using the same word when he let it slip during a press conference in Mexico. That immediate contrition earned him a different penalty to Verstappen, and was viewed in a completely different light to the authority-challenging stance Verstappen had taken.

As an Irishman, I’m not sensitive to cursing and swearing – for me, it’s normal and humanising. But, equally, there’s a time and place for it. I wouldn’t go on a national radio station in any country and expect not to be called out if I swore, and was then unrepentant about it.

While Verstappen was entirely correct to point out that F1 is an adult sport, and words such as he used are completely normal to him, the multi-culturalism of the environment he works in means that doubling down could be seen as disrespectful towards the more sensitive audience, as well as for the sporting organisation behind the championship within which he races.

Is the move to curtail the driver’s personalities and their natural selves boring? Of course, it is. As an example, look at how IMSA’s Tommy Milner’s angry response to being blocked by Augusto Farfus in the season-opener at the Rolex 24 spread everywhere on social media.

The image of Milner, who had stuck his hand out of the small gap in his driver’s window in order to flip his middle finger up at Farfus as he drove past the BMW driver on the high-speed oval, quickly went viral and was met with humour and enjoyment by most fans.

But the FIA doesn’t want to be associated with that type of behaviour. While Milner was justified in his anger, not every incident on track warrants explicit gestures or angry cursing in response. The new guidelines allow the stewards to investigate incidents like Milner’s, Verstappen’s, or Leclerc’s, taking context into account, and come down hard if they need to.

Like other major international sporting franchises like the NFL or the IOC, it’s an attempt at having behavioural standards imposed upon its competitors, which is fair enough. Officials deserve the utmost respect their positions command, just like a match referee, while the FIA does have the right to demand certain standards – the FIA is pushing hard against online abuse and abuse in general, and the guidelines give the governing body added deterrent power in this regard, should it be needed.

While clamping down on areas like swearing is thus rather boring for the sporting spectacle and sanitises the drivers into watered-down avatars of themselves, it’s the FIA’s prerogative to set – and it’s up to the drivers whether they are happy to accept these rules and regulations by continuing to race under the FIA’s jurisdiction. If they are, then the impetus is on them to play by the FIA’s rules in their playground.

More on the FIA and F1’s governance

? Explained: The real reasons behind the FIA’s new swearing guidelines

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The arguments against

The intention of the guidelines introduced by the introduction of Appendix B may be meant completely with the best of intentions by the governing body, given that the ‘changes’ aren’t really new to the rules. After all, the contents of Appendix B also appeared in last year’s Sporting Code – the transgressions listed haven’t changed, just the guidelines for the punishments available to the stewards.

But there’s no getting around the fact that the punishments do appear draconian and could be viewed as a move by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem to underline his authority, at a time when his leadership style has already irked the drivers – as outlined in their open letter from November 2024.

Not long after the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association made it clear that its members don’t view monetary punishments as being appropriate for such transgressions, the imposition of the possibility of fines starting at €40,000 for a first offence, and up to €120,000 for a third, could be viewed as the governing body doubling down without having listened to this point of view. Or that the drivers were listened to, and ignored.

Where the punishments could be problematic is in the imposition of penalties that affect the on-track sporting side, namely the threat of suspensions and undefined points deductions.

Given the open-ended way the Articles involved are written, it simply appears too easy for a driver to fall foul – unintentionally or otherwise – of areas which don’t have a whole lot to do with the competition. After all, no F1 fan would like to see, as an example, Verstappen lose a World Championship due to being suspended for cursing too much, or calling out officials for decision-making that may or may not be perfectly judged.

There are too many grey areas that, under the wording of the Articles, could be used against a driver. For instance, in what world is Lewis Hamilton wearing a rainbow flag on his helmet in a Middle Eastern country not a political or religious statement? Article 12.2.1.o of the ISC now opens him up to potential severe punishments simply for highlighting a basic human right. Imagine if his wearing of ‘Black Lives Matter’ or ‘Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor’ had netted him a suspension if these guidelines had been in place back in 2020.

What about the topic of ‘moral injury’? This is a hugely subjective area to attempt to govern, particularly given the rotation of stewards at any given weekend, and the potential mix of personal values.

Does a driver daring to criticise decisions made by any FIA leader, employee, or initiative, open up the possibility of causing a ‘moral injury’ which would then potentially lead to harsh punishments? According to the wording of Article 12.2.1.f, that driver is taking a big risk.

The FIA need to be applauded for wanting to tighten up the regulations, particularly after seeming to listen to the GPDA’s calls for greater transparency on such matters. It also must give itself the power to actually clamp down, and hard, on genuine grievances.

But the execution of the published guidelines does hint at being overly harsh, and hang over drivers for too long – two years is too long a period of time for such subjective areas of governance. The intentions of the regulations are somewhat clear – don’t be abusive, don’t swear like a sailor, and, rightly or wrongly, keep your personal views on sensitive subjects out of the sport.

There are better, less incendiary ways of introducing such rules – no one is arguing that officials don’t deserve respect – but drivers shouldn’t feel they have to hold their tongue on considered and balanced criticism of anyone involved in the sport, whether that be a rival driver, team, steward, or even senior officials like the FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem or F1’s Stefano Domenicali.

There’s also a somewhat hypocritical aspect that needs to be taken into account. The current popularity of F1 can be put down to how Netflix’s Drive to Survive resonated with non-F1 fans, which was bolstered by making celebrities out of figures like Guenther Steiner and Daniel Ricciardo – both of whom became headline acts due to their vocabulary choices. F1 can’t lean into marketing itself with the very behaviours that the FIA now threatens the drivers with.

To that end, narrowing the reach of the published guidelines, and shrinking the scope of the wording, to acknowledge that context will matter in such decision-making might have been a more diplomatic way of outlining the desired path forward.

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