The World Rally Championship’s Adrien Fourmaux has become the first driver sanctioned under the new FIA stewards’ penalty guidelines.
Having finished the Rally Sweden power stage on Sunday, the Frenchman used the F-word during his post-stage interview, which was broadcast live.
In response, the stewards handed him a €30,000 fine, with €20,000 of that suspended for 12 months. In accordance to the FIA International Sporting Code (ISC), the first €10,000 must be paid within 48 hours of notification.
I hope for some backlash from drivers, like just skipping all interviews from now on or something like that, since this is just stupid and over the top. FIA, what the fuck?
Some people lambasted Max when he shut up in a couple of interviews, doing the absolute bear minimum as required and give full on interviews outside of the buildings. But according to many he was ‘behaving like a child’ or ‘being immature’ or ‘being the typical arrogant Max’ and whatnot.
Turns out he was giving us a sample on how to deal with this BS and took the lead. My guess is the other drivers just neither have the balls nor gumption to follow suit. As so many times before, Max is at the forefront of these kind of situations and probably has to fight the bulk of this alone while others just sit still and smile sheepishly. The only other drivers I trust to speak out and help him with this are Hamilton and Alonso, the rest of the field you can not rely on to make a stance.
Skipping interviews? That’s also a fine.