Ticktum regrets “crash with him” radio comment on Deletraz which led to reprimand

Formula 2

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Formula 2 driver Dan Ticktum says he regrets remarks he made about rival Louis Deletraz on his radio during a race at Silverstone earlier this year.

The DAMS driver was given a reprimand under article 12.1.1.c of the FIA International Sporting Code, which forbids “any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”, for his remarks.

Ticktum made the remarks after being passed by his rival during the race. “The next time that [censored by FOM] tries a kamikaze move like that I’m going to crash with him,” he said. “I will never give him that much respect ever again.”

Speaking in an interview for Everything But The Points, Ticktum admitted: “I should have chosen the words better. I definitely admit that.”

However he denied his intention was to threaten a collision with his rival. “Deletraz, or one of the drivers, did a properly kamikaze move on me and I basically just completely opened the door and gave him room,” Ticktum explained. “And if I didn’t, we would have crashed.

“So my point was, next time I won’t give you that much respect and we’ll crash because you’re just going to crash into me, basically, because the move was so crazy. But they way I said it in the heat of the moment, it sounded like I wanted to crash into him and that’s what everyone took and then everyone went mental. So I should’ve chosen the words better.”

Ticktum believes more of his radio messages are being played in Formula 2 race broadcasts as a result of that comment.

“I said one thing on the radio and Silverstone that was a bit controversial and now every time I breathe down the mic they air all my comments. So literally everything that comes into my brain is directly on the radio.

“But God, I have to tone them down sometimes. Like the last one at Mugello I got absolutely slated for calling Tsunoda a ‘stupid little bloke’. Which, believe me, that had to take some filtering.”

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“Callum [Ilott] spoke to me after the race, he said ‘it’s lucky they just aired your radio mate because I said some dreadful things’,” Ticktum added.

Louis Deletraz, Charouz, Silverstone, 2020
Deletraz’s pass frustrated Ticktum at Silverstone
However Ticktum defended comments he made on social media after he was disqualified from victory at Monza. He was stripped of victory after the race when the stewards found there was insufficient fuel in his car for a sample to be taken, as is required by the rules.

“A part in the fuel tank failed caused a leak,” he wrote at the time. “So everyone out there saying it was the team’s fault can shut up. You aren’t at the track, you don’t know the situation until you hear it from the people who really know.”

Following the disqualification DAMS accused the series organisers of failing to fix a known problem with the fuel tanks on several cars. Ticktum said he was frustrated by comments suggesting the team had failed to put enough fuel in the car.

“I feel like if you grow up playing football you sort of understand about the game a bit more, you can have a bit more of a valid opinion. The thing is, very few people get to race or drive so you’ve got hundreds of thousand people giving opinions or just making comments thinking that they know more about the situation than me.

“The thing about being disqualified when I was in Monza, people accusing the team of not putting the right amount of fuel in. This is a team that’s put 32 drivers in Formula 1. Do you think they’re going to calculate the wrong quantity of fuel? It’s like the most simple thing ever.

“Then there’s people giving shit to the team. So I had to write something on social media about that and just tell everyone to shut up because that was a joke.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Ticktum regrets “crash with him” radio comment on Deletraz which led to reprimand”

  1. What good are regrets if you’re never learning from them? This guy has a long history of minor and major anger issues and has shown little to no progress of improving that. He should be counting his lucky stars that he even still has a drive at this point.

    So yeah, having regrets after you get told off does absolutely nothing. Trying to excuse them by saying “well I could have said a lot worse” and “but looky this other guy said I was right, so I must’ve been right” tells the whole story about the lessons being learned here.

  2. Yeah, well, he is sorry we heard that, is more like what he now says. And that he would have said it differently if he knew we would hear it (not sure that is actually true, he would have had to control himself at that moment to do so).

    His explanation of his thinking etc. is fine to read about, but this is not feeling sorry for the comment but feeling sorry for himself.

    1. He should ask Grosjean about having your radio messages played!

    2. His radio behaviour has been ridiculous this year and he comes across as a massive whiner with aggression problems who doesn’t seem all that different from the version of himself who drove through a safety car field to ram a competitor.

      That said, “stupid little bloke” cracked me up when I heard it.

  3. Ticktum will definitely benefit from keeping a tighter lid on his mouth in some of the situations he finds himself in, but I can feel the validity of the points he has made here. His explanation on his comment on Deletraz feels convincing, and it definitely must be frustrating to see so many keyboard warriors having a go at his team, when they don’t have any knowledge to reach any kind of conclusion in the first place.

    He may be very consistently and frequently vocal in his frustrations, and his past actions will probably continue to colour people’s opinion on him in the future (understandably so), but he also seems like an honest kind of guy who’ll stand up for his mates.

  4. He’s a hothead that needs to correct his behaviour before he hurts someone.

    If he can’t change his behaviour, he has no place in a racing car.

  5. “Oh Gosh, you intentionally go out your way to crash into your rival under the Safety Car once, and then everybody’s all over you. Gosh dang it, life’s so unfair”

  6. I can understand drivers having a lot of things to say in the heat of the moment, but there’s a fun example from Spa that shows that you can speak all you want, if you keep your radio off no one can hear you. Leclerc shouted ‘Putain de sa race!’ (or something like that) which I believe he did not want to tell his team or to the world outside, but just in his own mind but loudly. We do this all the time, when I am alone in my office I will often swear loudly if I make an error or something else irks me, but I’ll temper my reaction somewhat if there are colleagues around, unless I’m really angry in which case I can’t be bothered to censor myself.

    Ticktum has an anger issue, but I think it manifests itself very differently from Mazepin, both of whom are hot-headed. Mazepin is unlikely to launch into a long tirade about his bad luck on the team radio, though he will be quick to point it out in a post-race interview, which is where stuff like this should be reserved for, I believe. Ticktum on the other hand, is doing himself and no one else any favours with his prima-donna attitude of complaining when things aren’t going his way. ‘Stupid little bloke’ may or may not be discriminatory, but it’s still misguided, as was the Deletraz comments. First off, there was nothing wrong with Deletraz’s overtake at Vale, he’d already made that outside move on multiple drivers.

    I’d like to contrast it with Ghiotto, who after being taken out by his teammate basically using him as a brake, gave a very succinct account, calling Mazepin an ‘idiot’. Honestly, sometimes name-calling in its most generic sense (stupid, idiot, not going too far with the adjectives) is better than using your team radio as the Youtube comments section. Being less verbose helps, at times like these.

    Both Lundgaard and Ilott have had entertaining radio messages this season where they’ve come across as a bit complaining, but they’re still quite succinct, and maybe that’s why no one hates them. Or it could be because of Ticktum’s long history of bad behaviour (two crashes in F4, insinuations against Prema and Mick in F3, publicly berating Mugen in Super Formula).

  7. Maybe he should change his name to Senna then he’ll get a round of applause. He’s definitely a hothead but its just words on the radio and he’s not exactly alone, GP2 has a high proportion of ‘passionate’ drivers just now. I quite enjoy it but appreciate some fans ( see above) have got used to emotionless bland leading the bland racing

    1. Your logic is flawed. Come back with better logic.
      https://www.logicalfallacies.org/false-dilemma.html

      There are other options. People can like passionate drivers that don’t have Ticktums reputation.

      1. I’m not talking about logic, I’m talking about enjoying drivers who don’t puss y foot around. Your argument is flawed, emotion/enjoyment isn’t an equation or logic. Feel free to come back when you better understand what enjoyment means. BTW- I don’t need a link I wont look at for you to do better

        1. I called out your logic for you seem to believe that people who don’t like his behaviour automatically don’t like passionate drivers. THAT is a common logical fallacy. It is not mutually exclusive. And besides, as if passion only means ramming opponents deserving a 2-year ban and media temper tantrums. For instance, I remember a crying Häkkinen in the bushes in Monza. To me that was a very powerful image and a sign of true passion, but the ultimate opposite of what I see of Ticktum.

          But now you are connecting me calling out your logic, to me not understanding enjoyment… somehow. So I guess this side thread is now over.

          1. Your girlfriend leave the room half way through you speaking?

            Thought so

    2. It’s not just words though, is it? He chased after a rival, under Safety Car conditions, and crashed into them. Not only did he endanger people but he negatively impacted Ricky Collard’s career, who didn’t have the backing of someone like Ticktum, by putting a dent in his championship bid. Given that there are plenty of well-funded young drivers out there, why anyone would want to be associated with someone like Ticktum, who clearly shows no sign of changing, is beyond me.

  8. He’s a good driver with a lot of potential. In my opinion should be getting the FP1 drives in the Williams instead of wreck it Roy but I totally agree with other people that he has anger issues and needs to engage his brain before his mouth. Sort that and he’s got a bright future.

  9. I do really feel for Dan Ticktum. He made a huge mistake in his early teens in his first year of racing, accepted and served his penalty, and people can’t seem to move on and let it go.

    I have no doubt that he’s not alone in his radio outbursts but unfortunately the media seems to be turning on him and portraying messages in such a way to accentuate this “bad personality” – I seem to recall the same happening to Grosjean, where other drivers moan as much, if not more, but we only hear Grosjeans.

    1. We’ll let it go as soon as he does.

  10. I struggle with the tone of Daniel’s comments. I’ve never driven a racing car or worked for a racing team, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold any opinion or make any comments about him or his team – but my comments are clearly going to be less informed than someone working for the team.

    If all teams were faultless then no mistakes would ever happen. That’s not me blaming the team for the fuel incident – that’s just stating that teams are made up of human beings are mistakes can be made.

  11. “I feel like if you grow up playing football you sort of understand about the game a bit more, you can have a bit more of a valid opinion. The thing is, very few people get to race or drive so you’ve got hundreds of thousand people giving opinions or just making comments thinking that they know more about the situation than me.”
    – Pretty much sums up 99% of the comments on this site

    1. It’s not the racing though is it. The guy’s a nasty piece of work with some serious aggression/anger issues. It’s a personal issue he needs to work on and would surface in any sport he chose to compete in. Comments like this just cement him as being oblivious to how to act like a decent empathetic human being.

  12. If it was just a one-off error of judgment, as bad as it was, it might be forgivable. With Ticktum thought, it seems to be week-in week-out, in every formula he drives in. I know there’s such a thing as confirmation bias but every time he’s on-screen he seems to be acting either entitled, well beyond his modest talents, or just thoroughly unpleasant. And if his command of English is so poor that people ‘misinterpret’ what he says in the heat of the moment, then maybe just keep quiet in future, especially if you’ve made yourself a target for the director to broadcast your radio.

  13. He’s a real snot nosed little so and so with his comments.

  14. He is and will always be hated for life.

  15. 2015 bumper car world champion .

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