Grand Prix Drivers’ Affiliation (GPDA) chairman Alex Wurz hopes F1 will “shield the drivers” from punishments below the FIA’s contentious new stewards’ penalty pointers.
Forward of the 2025 F1 season, drivers can now be hit with substantial fines, race bans and championship factors deductions for indiscretions reminiscent of swearing and talking out towards the governing physique.
The Austrian needs the championship, that these days controls its personal tv feed, to assist help these racing within the collection by bleeping out foul language, one thing that has change into a hot-button problem in F1 following Max Verstappen’s use of the F-word in an FIA press convention eventually season’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Wurz doesn’t consider any drivers need to actively “insurgent” towards the rules, which has been added to the FIA’s Worldwide Sporting Code, however did emphasise how troublesome it may be for them “within the warmth of the second” throughout races.
“It is a huge matter, clearly,” Wurz instructed RacingNews365. “Possibly greater within the media than it’s inside our [the GPDA’s] ranks.
“I believe everyone seems to be conscious that drivers are function fashions, that there’s a accountability coming from that and with that.
“And I do not know any one of many drivers who need to insurgent, however we now have to additionally see that within the warmth of the second, there are some occasions the place possibly a phrase slips out of your mind by the mouth, after which it is on a microphone.
“So we additionally hope that the controllers of the [television] feeds use the beeps and in addition shield the drivers, in a way [and that] as an entire trade, we’re giving a superb instance to the world, to the younger children.”
Defending youthful audiences
Defending youthful audiences from unhealthy language is one thing Wurz locations a premium on, drawing on his personal expertise as a father to tell his view.
The previous F1 driver needs to see higher and extra open strains of communication between the FIA, F1, and its drivers to finest treatment the state of affairs round swearing.
“I’ve younger children, I would like them to develop up as protected as potential, however there’s a actual world on the market as properly,” he mentioned.
“So I might suppose when you have direct communication with one another, aiming to offer achievable targets collectively, then we’ll obtain that.
“That is what we have accomplished prior to now, the previous few years, the GPDA – and I am the chairman of this organisation.
“We’re all the time pleased if we’re having a direct dialogue with the important thing stakeholders.”
