Max Verstappen and the FIA have been at odds with each other since the start of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend due to the Dutchman’s use of swear words in the drivers’ press conference on Thursday. And while Verstappen has been punished for his actions, F1 expert Edd Straw believes that he is actually the one winning the battle in the court of public opinion.
After the conference on Thursday, the stewards called Verstappen in on Friday after FP1 to discuss the matter and punished him with community service. However, the 26-year-old has since been in retaliation mode as he has refused to take part in the conferences that followed on Saturday and Sunday.
Max Verstappen fights the FIA with their own weapons. The FIA started a war with the champion, one they can never win.
Max told reporters he will answer questions in detail outside pic.twitter.com/s00vEvMWdi
— Marc (@433_marc) September 21, 2024
And even when he has spoken to the media, he has only given one or two-word answers at best. And this is what Straw believes has helped Verstappen win over the public. “The problem here is that by taking that action that he has in retaliation for Verstappen, a sort of passive resistance, he comes across very very well,” Straw stated in a recent conversation with other experts on ‘The Race’ podcast. He added,
“Verstappen ends up looking like the voice of reason, he’s played it beautifully. So you’re not going to win that battle because you just made yourself look stupid.”
FIA is not completely unreasonable: Straw
While he certainly believes that Verstappen has taken the correct course of action in response to the whole swearing debacle, Straw also thinks that Ben Sulayem and the FIA are not completely unreasonable in their attempt to reduce the use of offensive language in the broadcast.
However, where he faults Ben Sulayem is in his approach of not informing the teams and the drivers in advance of the sudden ban on the use of swear words and making it into such a high-profile case by targetting Verstappen.
Max Verstappen woke up this morning and decided to tell the truth.pic.twitter.com/K1srDz58C1
— Marc (@433_marc) September 19, 2024
“If you want to keep the language clean in the FIA press conferences, that’s not remotely unreasonable. Everybody knows that you have to moderate your language depending on your platform… Max Verstappen understands that,” he added.
