Welcome to Friday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
If Carlos Sainz Jnr does get another fine for swearing in yesterday’s press conference, he won’t have everyone’s sympathy:
Lots of people defending him, but come on. You know where you need to be and when. My eight-year-old child has been able to regulate her toilet use for years. She’s also able to regulate her language and not use swearwords.
Are these drivers adults? Why are we excusing them behaving like toddlers?
@MazdaChris
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Aniket Garg!
On this day in motorsport
- 70 years ago today Jean Behra won the non-championship Pau Grand Prix in a Maserati after long-time leader Alberto Ascari was sidelined by a braking problem
- 40 years ago today Rene Arnoux was unexpectedly dropped by Ferrari just one race into his third season at the team
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Dex
11th April 2025, 0:09
I suppose Mazda guy never swore in his entire life. Yes, exactly, they are adults. And adults sometimes say those words. We’re not saints, F1 is not a church; nor is FIA a god. I don’t feel offended at all when a “beep” moment happens. And believe me, your kid already knows all those words anyway.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
11th April 2025, 0:46
Of course I swear. Freely, and often. I swear with my friends, I swear on social media. Sometimes I even swear at inanimate objects when they displease me by interacting negatively with my natural clumsiness. Swearing is one of life’s great joys.
But I don’t swear on here. I don’t swear when I’m writing something for work. I wouldn’t swear in a job interview or while representing my employer. When I’ve worked in customer facing roles, I never swore at them, even when being on the receiving end of extreme rudeness. There are many, many instances where I won’t swear. Not because I don’t want to, but because the context of the situation makes it inappropriate, either because it would cause offence, or because it is explicitly against the rules. This is not some rare and braggable skill that I have. Moderating your behaviour depending on the context is a very basic skill that the vast majority of people manage to learn and master without ever even thinking about it.
I’m certain, as you say, that my daughter has a well developed arsenal of swear words which she can choose to deploy whenever she wants. But she has never sworn in front of me. She’s never sworn in front of her teachers, or any other grown up that I know of. Because, as I said in the post quoted above, this is a really basic thing that people learn at a very young age.
If someone is swearing in a situation where it’s either not appropriate or not allowed, it’s generally because they’re making a choice to do it. Barring developmental issues and specific neurological conditions, people have control over whether they swear or not. Given this, it’s extremely hard to sympathise with any driver for getting a severe punishment. They know it’s not allowed. They know it’ll have consequences. Yet they do it anyway.
Well, they get what they get.
asz
11th April 2025, 10:06
All of this is true but perhaps fails to take into account how people perceive their own “added value”.
A client-facing employee, a subordinate creating a report, someone in a job interview or at the negotiating table understands that swearing is completely incongruous with the situation and he will be valued less and not more because of it.
However, people in the show business (i.e. those who produce nothing useful and valuable apart from entertainment for the masses, and this includes F1 drivers) may feel that they are worth more as showpeople if they are, at least occasionaly, seen as spontaneous, emotional, controversial, blunt etc. and thus consider themselves kind of entitled to a bit of off-the-reservation behaviour now and then. (Not to mention that their personality might also be more in line with such behaviour compared to a businessman or a well-behaved wage slave.)
BasCB (@bascb)
11th April 2025, 14:06
Good point there asz. I would also say that while in principle I would agree that swearing and use of swear words is generally self moderated depending on context, the matter of the fact is that Sainz was not really “swearing” was he?
He just made an attempt of a play on words about himself having had to urgently go to the toilet because of an uncomfortable health issue causing a 5 second delay (i.e. almost nothing) to arriving in time for the national anthem. Is that really “swearing”?
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
13th April 2025, 5:45
@mazdachris
I absolutely agree with you mazdachris.
I’m also surprised by some of the counter arguments. For example, being ‘adults’ should suggest the drivers would be MORE capable of behaving appropriately, not less. And F1 is not an adults only show.
In the bigger picture, swearing only carries weight for both the one cursing, and the audience, due to that fact that it is not everyday acceptable language. Perhaps there is an argument to suggest that everyone should constantly swear (you, me, the pope, kids, the wiggles etc etc) which would eventually make the effected words mainstream and as taboo as saying heck, darn, or Trump (maybe not the latter). Of course, in this unlikely scenario, it would only give rise to new words with equally dubious roots.
Ultimately, I actually don’t really care about it as much as my response would suggest, though I do believe it is unnecessary and not particularly pleasant.
Roy Beedrill
11th April 2025, 5:08
He’s just a guy who likes her 8yo daughter’s toilet to be strictly regulated. I wonder what happens to her if she doesn’t make it in time he allows. Also racefans team again went for the ragebait comment for the clicks, things are not going well I suppose.
Moi
11th April 2025, 9:59
Don’t turn it into a personal attack through his child, no call for that.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
11th April 2025, 10:18
+1
Dane
11th April 2025, 1:44
“I met him when I was quite little, I think it was 2018,” Antonelli told reporters”
Jeez! I forget how young he is, 2018 feels like last week to me.
Mohammad Reza (@reza-pratama24)
11th April 2025, 2:24
Re: COTD, that’s what i’m talking about many things about the topic of swearing.. You are an adult, you are a role models for youngsters who aspires to be a racing driver let alone F1 drivers, yet lots of people trying to normalise swearing as a normal thing, wow… Just wow… Ok i understand for aome people tend to swear when in the heat of the moment, but in an interview ? you cannot be professional if you swear all the time… That’s not personality, that’s mannerless..
S Arkazam
11th April 2025, 7:36
I guess you choose yourself the things to get upset about.
For me: life’s too short!
Jay
11th April 2025, 10:09
Life too short to worry about swear words, OK, I can get behind that. How about other words that some people take offense to? After all, they’re just words, right?
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
11th April 2025, 10:20
reductio ad absurdium
Zach Bigalke (@bigalke)
12th April 2025, 2:30
Indeed
SteveP
12th April 2025, 13:23
Sentiments OK, in fact bang on target, but a spare “i” in the text.
Reductio ad absurdum
S Arkazam
11th April 2025, 11:45
There is a huge difference between ‘uttering swear words’ and threats/harassment/defamation/etc. And the latter already has the proper legal options to act against.
Now back to enjoying your life; it’s already a few key strokes shorter.
Hairs_
11th April 2025, 11:24
Swearing is punctuation, depending on where you come from. Being precious about swearing is more likely to be considered odd behaviour, in fact.
MikeD (@nanotech)
11th April 2025, 3:18
Well, at least someone’s giving FIFA a run for their money on corruption and authoritarianism.
Jere (@jerejj)
11th April 2025, 6:23
A somewhat surprising COTD choice, given it fails to tell the difference between a random toilet break that can be done at any time with full flexibility to choose the precise timing & an out-of-control stomach issue that effectively requires immediate toilet action.
S Arkazam
11th April 2025, 7:45
Not so surprising if you understand that on social media ‘recommended’, ‘top pick’, CotD, etc. are chosen to prolong the discussion and engagement rather than celebrate insightful contributions.
It clearly delivered ;)
MichaelN
11th April 2025, 9:00
It’s very easy to never be profane, curse or generally talk like a teen getting a kick out of being edgy. The idea that drivers can’t behave themselves is more patronising than these admittedly silly rules. But F1 is a world championship, and a generic level of professionalism is required when you have such a wildly diverse audience.
Sumedh
11th April 2025, 9:57
So weird that Russell’s best Mercedes car was the 1st one he drove as a one-off :(
Ferdi
11th April 2025, 10:31
I am missing the flex wing discussion in the round-up. McLaren still dodgy with this. Come Barcelona I expect a drop in performance from their side unless FIA/Liberty decides to look the other way, which wouldn’t be surprising at all given their questionable lack of consistency in enforcement which is rather based on politics than on metrics.
S Arkazam
11th April 2025, 11:53
The rear wing performance at Suzuka (video) is supposedly legal under the stricter regulation.
Not sure what will change from Barcelona.
SteveP
12th April 2025, 13:27
I think Ferdi missed the memo that said they were bringing the testing change, originally scheduled for Barcelona, forward to Suzuka.
Esmiz (@esmiz)
11th April 2025, 13:52
About the Antonelli news. I’ve read it a couple of times and I can’t find where it says he’s not named after Kimi Raikkonen. It only says he was born in Bologna a year before Raikkonen won the world championship. It’s not a big deal, but it catches my attention because I don’t think “Kimi” is a common Italian name, and I’ve always thought he’s named after Raikkonen.
Regarding the issue of swear words. I’ll never understand it. Threat words or hate speech, threats or violence as sometimes seen in some USA races seems completely reprehensible to me. But a word used to express annoyance or surprise? will never seem wrong to me, no matter what the word is. And even more so if it’s said in a moment of tension… I think people forget that drivers aren’t sitting on a couch like them.
Leo B
11th April 2025, 17:12
Very nice to see a photo of the original Kimster, full of panache and charisma as he always was.
Also, he swore freely in conversation, for comic effect. But never in an FIA interview. He was the consummate professional.
Mal Ross (@malross)
11th April 2025, 17:10
“Antonelli not named after Raikkonen” had to be the most non-headline headline I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t often carp about ‘news’ stories on here, but there’s a limit. I really don’t think this deserved inclusion. /shrug