It’s been a little while since I typed something out on here, so it felt like a good time to do another edition of the Newswipe now we’re in the off-season and about a month away from things ramping up in F1 again. But it wouldn’t be F1 without some messy shit as per usual. So let’s get into the latest mess from the office of the FIA, Jack Doohan, and how he might already be on a thin leash, as well as FOX’s big moves as they take the IndyCar rights. Newswipe!
BSB – Ben Sulayem’s Bulls**t
Welcome to a new segment here called BSB – Ben Sulayem’s Bullshit. In it, we review the latest and greatest nonsense from the FIA. And entering 2025, they’ve changed their policy on fines. The FIA would never outright admit that it was off the back of the Singapore drama with Max Verstappen and the community service he was punished with for swearing during a press conference, but we all know that that, combined with Charles Leclerc’s $10,000 fine for doing the same later in the season, is what got us here.
The changes to the rules are flat out Draconian. Fines now start at $10k for a whole range of potential offences down below:
What this table doesn’t tell you, is that this is the base fine and that the higher up the FIA pyramid of Championships you’re running, this fine can multiply, with F1 drivers on their own with a 4x Multiplier. Yes, that’s ALL OF THEM. From F1, to Formula E, the World Endurance Championship and beyond.
Meaning, swearing in an F1 presser now carries a 40,000 euro fine for a first offence. And yes, Autosport did confirm that swearing in a press conference is deemed an “offensive act” and would go into the bracket of misconduct.
This is already ridiculous in my opinion. In most sports, if you swear in a press conference or media interview governed by a sport, you say sorry and you generally move on. It happens. People are gonna curse every once in a while. And while yes, kids are watching and ideally you want to be as open a broadcast as you can, fining people five figures for a slip of the tongue is ridiculous, especially given this wasn’t an issue until Max did it (I haven’t forgotten Wolff and Vasseur’s warning from Vegas in 2023. What changed?)
But look at the right-hand columns. The punishments rack up extremely quickly. If you get caught with three rule breaks in a rolling two-year period, you’re paying 240,000 euros in fines, a one-month suspension from the sport, and a deduction of Championship points!
WHAT?!
A one-month suspension could be anywhere from 0-3 F1 races depending on where that drops on the calendar. Missing three races would be the end of a title campaign on the spot, and that’s before a points deduction that will be multiplied by four. For me, that’s a completely ridiculous and over-the-top reaction to how 2024’s swearing incidents played out. So let me get this straight, you want to threaten the entire scoring of a championship by making sure your drivers are PG-13 on TV? Come on. This is the definition of needless meddling. According to the BBC, it was pushed through on a snap e-vote and without any consultation when it could have easily been discussed at a council meeting before the season started.
And the FIA’s continuing to push that distance between themselves and the rest of the sport by changing Article 13 of the Sporting Code, which now prohibits protests from being lodged against stewarding decisions. Putting more distance between their decision making process and the rest of the sports stakeholders isn’t a great look – especially when one of its most experienced in Johnny Herbert continues to take cheques from bookmakers explaining his decision making. Maybe he wouldn’t have to if the job was a permanent, paid position… but Ben Sulayem wants the teams to pay for it. You run the governing body, it’s your responsibility to ensure the sport is delegated correctly, not its participants.
But that’s been the point of Ben Sulayem from the start. It’s yet another needless power trip from the man who only a couple of months ago was adamant that it wasn’t the driver’s business how he ran the FIA. Rule changes like this make it the driver’s business, and I think it’s completely unnecessary treatment. We’ve had three incidents of figures within the sport swearing in a presser since 2023, and now we’re staring at race bans for it. Show this to any fan from another sport and they’re laughing at you.
I get it. In an ideal world, you want the drivers to be role models. But this isn’t how you get the “best” out of people. All you’re doing is making even more of an enemy out of a drivers’ association that already had to write an open letter about how they were being treated. The FIA is taking zero accountability for actions that seem an awful lot like a dictatorship at the moment and it’s only going to get more tense between the sports stakeholders if this keeps up.
Dead Doohan Walking
Things don’t look good for Jack Doohan here, and his rookie season hasn’t even started yet.
I’m a big NFL fan, and a certain Quarterback over there has been the walking personification of the problem. One of the earliest years I can remember watching was when the Washington Commanders drafted Robert Griffin III as their new franchise player with the #2 pick in the draft. But it was pretty clear that they didn’t have full confidence in him because Washington spent a pretty valuable 3rd round pick on another QB in Kirk Cousins. Long story short, RG3 balled out, but his coach making him play through a torn ACL in his first playoff game derailed his entire career. Kirk Cousins took over and has now made over $300 million in his career.
Cousins got $95 million of that via the Atlanta Falcons this past season, a risky move from them given he had just come off a torn Achilles tendon. Ironically, the Falcons ALSO drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the 9th pick this season. Sound familiar? Cousins got benched after throwing a bunch of interceptions and now Penix is the starter going forward.
The reason why I told you this story is because I fear we’re getting a carbon copy of that situation for Alpine right now.
Jack Doohan was announced a little while ago as Esteban Ocon’s replacement as the Frenchman heads to Haas. He even got to finish the season in Abu Dhabi in December. But there have been rumblings from the start that Flavio Briatore (Who decided to boot Ocon out early), that Doohan’s under immediate pressure to succeed.
Why? They’ve now hired Franco Colapinto, the former Williams Academy prospect as their new test and development driver. That already got people going, but then Colapinto told the French press that he was on a FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT.
Now, call me crazy, but you don’t sign a development driver to a five-year contract unless you’ve got serious long-term plans for that person. It comes off as: “Hold onto this contract Franco and stick around, we’ll have something for you later”.
It links up well with the general rumours that Doohan has a performance clause in his contract that could mean letting him go as early as Round 6 in Miami. It’s a classic Briatore intimidation tactic. If he doesn’t like you, he’s going to push you towards the exit door, like Jenson Button, Jarno Trulli and Nelson Piquet Jr back in the day.
It just screams of weak management. If you didn’t believe in Doohan to begin with, why not just sign Colapinto to a race seat for 2025 straight away? James Vowles was playing hardball, but if you were preparing a 5-year deal for Colapinto, you had money you were prepared to invest in him regardless. And now Doohan, a rookie with Pierre Gasly as a teammate, has to be close to his level immediately or could face a chop. The way Briatore’s done this is very bizarre and very messy.
But it wouldn’t be Briatore without some mess. It’s what he does best.
Welcome to the FOX IndyCar era
Well now, a good start to the FOX era for IndyCar since picking up the TV rights for 2025. Their first major advert was featured around Josef Newgarden and if you’ve missed it, you can check it out down below. I have some thoughts!
Generally, I really like this ad. IndyCar’s biggest sell beyond the good driving (Which clearly isn’t the be all and end all, is its personalities), and the series is loaded with them. I’m a little miffed they focused on Newgarden first, as it reinforces the idea that the Indy 500 winner is more important than the series Champion, but Alex Palou does make a pretty funny cameo in there as a nice easter egg to the existing fans.
But the idea of Josef Newgarden being the “Tom Brady” of IndyCar makes perfect sense. Josef is handsome AF, an incredibly tough and gritty racer, already one of the series’ greatest ever with two titles and two 500 wins, he looks a bit like Tom Brady (Who is in the ad!), and literally married a Disney Princess and has a gorgeous family. It’s perfect “face of the franchise” energy and the ideal guy to build a TV promo around. It was more exciting advertising than anything that came before out of the series, more of a cheesy throwback to the series marketing during the 2010s.
As I’ve said many times here, we are always going to be most captivated by human stories within Motorsport, and IndyCar targeting the drivers is the right move. This is the sort of advert that builds character and gives your brand an image. It’s something I genuinely think F1 is trying to do now. Its social media is in a weird state of flux where it wants to produce constant highlights and use its archive to tell stories, but also dabbles in the well of meme culture. DTS got them extra eyeballs, now the series needs to figure out what it wants to be in the eyes of those masses.
Another poaching hire might help with that as Will Buxton is leaving F1 TV to front their coverage alongside the retained James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell. It’s an interesting move and one I lean towards liking. I’m not a huge fan of Bell and his biases on the mic, but Hinchcliffe has gotten better and better as time has gone on with IndyCar and with F1 TV. As for Buxton, he’s a huge believer in IndyCar as a series (Almost too much given he’s already punching up at NASCAR to… mixed receptions), but he’s passionate about the series, has always been a strong anchor figure across the pond and he will definitely be able to match Leigh Diffey’s energy. I like it. (Part of me hopes Shea Adam from IMSA can be their reporter, but I’m wishful thinking here.)
It’s still early days, and I want to see what FOX is going to do in three months time as it runs up to the Indy 500, and across the whole season and beyond, but this was a strong start and there’s some genuine excitement in the series for the first time in a while. Let’s hope it continues.
