Hamilton and Russell blast FIA president’s swearing ban U-turn

Lewis Hamilton has piled into the FIA president’s decision to row back on his swearing ban – saying the whole “ridiculous” situation is “a mess”.

Meanwhile, George Russell said Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s plans to climb down on its previous stance on punishing drivers seemed “all a bit suspect”.

It comes after Formula 1’s governing body, the FIA, revised penalties for drivers for swearing amid a backlash.

Under the original plans, F1 drivers could be fined €40,000 (£33,700) for a first offence, and double that – plus a ban for a second offence. However, that has now been reduced to €5,000 (£4,200) while the threat of a ban has been removed.

Hamilton was asked about the decision to backtrack ahead of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and said: “It is ridiculous. I don’t really know. Nothing I say is going to make any difference to it. It seems a bit of a mess there at the moment.

“There are lots of changes that are needed, for sure. But it doesn’t really affect me. I don’t see what’s happened since then.”

Meanwhile, Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, said: “We’re talking about a situation where things have been reverted because it was a little bit ludicrous in the first place.

“Of course we’re happy to see that it [has been changed], but it should never have been there in the first place, if that makes sense.

“So it feels a bit wrong to be thanking [the FIA] for the changes when we shouldn’t have been in that place to begin with.

“We’ve still had no correspondence with anyone from the senior level at the FIA. So yeah, it’s all a bit suspect.”

Russell was asked why he thought the drivers had not been spoken to directly by Ben Sulayem.

He added: “That’s a good question. It seems more challenging than it should be really, but we’ve all put our views forward.

“I wouldn’t say it’s gotten to a point of no return, but you at least want to see willingness from the other party.

“I think we feel we’ve put our views forward, and we want to have conversations and dialogue, and there’s only so much you can ask.”