FIA stewards cause problems for themselves after Charles Leclerc's fine

It goes without saying that drivers are role models. Scolding another driver or having a row with each other next to the track should certainly be punished. In this case, however, the FIA stewards engaged in something very small, which is now being turned into something very big: swearing in a press conference.

Max Verstappen was given community service for it, having described his car's behaviour as 'f***ed' in the press conference. This is a disproportionate punishment. Why can't an outlier be dealt with with a warning or a fine first? It confirms Verstappen's feeling that he is being used as a scapegoat. That feeling will not have eased after Leclerc's punishment.

For the same offence, Leclerc will now be fined €10,000, €5,000 of which is conditional. This is a drop in the ocean for F1 drivers, of course, and all the more so in relation to Verstappen's penalty.

A penalty for swearing in F1

Most bizarrely, the stewards have now spent their time analysing Leclerc's 'f**k' utterance, according to the FIA document. Why does Leclerc get a penalty different from that of Verstappen? Because Leclerc was immediately aware of the mistake and immediately apologised.

Here, however, something goes wrong. First, the penalty for an offence should be the same in all cases. The fact that someone is very sorry should not change the punishment. Second, Leclerc apologised because he knew Verstappen had received a community service penalty. His literal 'sorry' was, "I don't want to go with Max." So, Leclerc only apologised because he did not want the same punishment as Max.

A third argument for why things went wrong is timing. Whereas Verstappen was called to the stewards immediately after his verdict, with Leclerc, it took a week. Yes, his moment was after the post-race press conference, but then the stewards are also at work, right? Why did they only intervene in Brazil? Probably only because of the commotion caused afterwards.

The solution for the FIA

Therefore, the FIA and the stewards are making things unnecessarily difficult for themselves with these rules. Under the guise of 'setting a good example' for handing out a penalty every time someone uses a wrong word, you're in for a while. Only a few would be left on the pitch if they did that in football.

It is even more strange because F1 itself chooses to broadcast all the drivers' team radios, the team radios in which logically drivers swear a lot, just as athletes will always swear in the heat of battle. So they can, but a penalty will follow if drivers use such a word once in a press conference.

The solution? Scrap this rule. Of course, if you scold someone or give a push, a penalty should follow. But if you deliberately choose to broadcast team radios with swearing to the public, don't suddenly be hypocritical if a swear word is heard once in a press conference. Issue a warning or a fine (swear jar), and that's it. Then, maybe the stewards can focus on things that do matter.