Verstappen defended in ‘absolute nonsense’ battle with FIA

Max Verstappen has been robustly defended in what has been described as an “absolutely nonsense” battle with the FIA over swearing. 

Verstappen has been involved in a contretemps with the governing body, which punished him in September for swearing during an FIA press conference. 

The three-time F1 champion was ordered to complete a form of community service punishing for using the f-word ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix to describe his car’s performance in the previous race in Baku.

Since the incident, Charles Leclerc was fined for also swearing during an FIA press conference in Mexico City. 

This week, a statement was released by the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), directed to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. 

The GDPA scrutinised the FIA for punishing swearing and noted that there is a key difference between swearing with the intention of insulting someone and describing a car. 

Jordan does not agree with the penalties being dished out by the governing body for bad language, and believes Verstappen has been targeted.

“It’s a storm in a teacup, it’s absolutely nonsense,” Jordan told Talksport. “Personally, I think it started out by wanting to have a little bit of a swipe at Max. 

“But Max is too clever for an awful lot of people, as we saw, not just on the track, but off the track. All of the top drivers in F1 all agree. Look, if the car is knackered and you want to use the F-word, then that’s what you use. 

“It’s the most used word in the English language at this moment in time, whether we like it or not, but naturally, you don’t want to use it in a confrontational point-of-view, and you don’t want to use it in an aggressive point-of-view. 

“But when you’re depicting something, and something has happened, and you say the car is stuffed, or whatever it is, and if you want to use the F-word to describe that, I think that describes it brilliantly, because, hey, everyone knows that it’s absolutely knackered.”