The Drivers Know Best
The FIA's worst nightmare came to life this past Monday after the Brazilian Grand Prix when all 20 drivers, plus current F2 drivers Ollie Bearman and Kimi Antonelli, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, former F1 driver Alex Wurz, and the director of the GPDA Anastasia Fowle, came together to make the official Instagram for the GPDA, the Grand Prix Drivers Association.
If you thought Lewis Hamilton leaving Mercedes for Ferrari was shocking, the creation of the Instagram account has changed the world of motorsports as we know it.
Creating the account is as if the drivers were forming a union, like the Writer Guild of America or SAG-AFTRA. We have been waiting to see what the drivers will do with the account for the last few days. Until we finally got a post. The driver had put out the statement, saying they are tired of being ignored by the FIA and its president and want real changes to happen. In this short statement, the F1 drivers past, present, and future had a lot to say, and there are a couple of things we can take away from the post, especially after this triple header.
Max Verstappen during his press conference (Ben Hunt)
This takes us to Singapore, the home of Sweargate, where Max Verstappen was penalized with community service after using some inappropriate language during the press conference before the start of the race weekend. He proceeded to protest this by limiting his response to the media during his FIA-sanctioned appearances, but he held his own personal press conferences up and down the paddock. Sweargate seemed like something so long ago until the Mexican Grand Prix, where Charles Leclerc used some not-so-family-friendly words to describe an incident on the race track in the post-race press conference. They ended up giving him a fine of ten thousand euros.
Let's remember that the real root of the problem happened back in May 2022 when the FIA tried to regulate a couple of new rules. One of the rules was on what type of underwear the drivers were allowed to race in. So, during the Miami Grand Prix weekend, Sebastian Vettel showed up wearing underwear over his race suit as a form of protest.
Sebastian Vettel’s protest against the FIA (MotorSport.com)
But no one hates the FIA like Lewis Hamilton does, especially with the current president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. This year, Hamilton has publicly criticized FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem multiple times. Most recently, during the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, while there was a rain delay during Saturday's qualifying session, an F1TV presenter attempted to interview Hamilton. Instead of engaging in the interview, Hamilton used the opportunity to criticize the FIA for focusing on trivial issues rather than important matters, such as improving wet tires and the use of tire blankets.
This isn't the first time Hamilton has stood up to the FIA, infamously during the Miami 2022 press conference when the FIA tried to ban drivers from wearing jewelry while in the race car. Hamilton was the only driver at the time known for wearing chains, bracelets, and numerous piercings. Instead of taking them seriously, he returned to the paddock completely decked out in jerky. And if you need more evidence, watch the entirety of the 2021 F1 season; Lewis Hamilton has more than enough reason to be after the FIA.
Lewis Hamilton protesting during his 2022 press conference (Getty Images)
Leclerc was fined ten thousand euros for saying one word the FIA didn't seem appropriate, but when Lando Norris, George Russel, Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda were fined five thousand euros for aborting the start procedure, something that could be considered cheating.
This raises questions about the FIA's priorities. Is it in the racing itself or the noise the media makes?
That leads to the big question on everyone's mind—the same question the drivers have been asking for at least the last three years, as revealed in the statement: where does all the money go?
In NASCAR, when drivers are hit with monetary fines, the money is placed into the NASCAR foundation, and from there, it is dispersed to multiple different charities. But for the last three years, when the drivers asked where all of this money was going, they weren't given an answer. With the start procedure infringement alone, the FIA made twenty thousand euros, money that just disappeared.
All the drivers are asking for is financial transparency and to work with the FIA and their shareholders to make racing fun and safe for the drivers and the fans. With the season coming to an end, it'll be interesting to see how much the GPDA's presence will impact the paddock and how big of a role the GPDA will play in the 2025 season, especially with the upcoming season being the season right before the FIA is set to introduce some big regulation changes for the 2026 season.