Motorsport Off Topic Thread

t2na said:
Ferrari are going to be making a killing with these merch sales.
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Yep.

I imagine a large part of signing him was for commercial reasons. They already have a likely championship winner if the car is good enough in Leclerc. It was a no brainer to sign Hamilton if he wanted to join them though, as they get a driver who even at his worst/if he is declining due to age (and last season wasn’t a one off naff one) is at least on par with Sainz, but they get the insane media exposure that Hamilton brings. Sure, he was expensive, but i bet they will make back whatever they are paying him many times over compared with Sainz.
 
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I saw we've had some punishments for drivers swearing recently, €10000 for saying a very trivial thing, not in anger.

I think with the current leadership, it's time to stop all radio transmissions and post-race interviews. Everything should go through a publicity specialist first. This is clearly what they want.

I'm not interested in seeing drivers second guessing every word they are saying, often not in their first language.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
I saw we've had some punishments for drivers swearing recently, €10000 for saying a very trivial thing, not in anger.

I think with the current leadership, it's time to stop all radio transmissions and post-race interviews. Everything should go through a publicity specialist first. This is clearly what they want.

I'm not interested in seeing drivers second guessing every word they are saying, often not in their first language.
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For me one of the most mental things is that the only reason driver radios are broadcast is because the FIA and FOM want to broadcast them! The drivers clearly want to use it as an actual radio.
 
t2na said:
For me one of the most mental things is that the only reason driver radios are broadcast is because the FIA and FOM want to broadcast them! The drivers clearly want to use it as an actual radio.
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100% this. Back in the 2000s when they first started playing driver radios over the broadcast, and before all the car-to-pits radio chatter was fully public, drivers would discuss sensitive strategy decisions and litter the conversation with swearing so that it couldn't be played out on TV. Even now it's the decision of the race director to play the radios and what is deemed suitable, with appropriate censorship. Punishing someone for what is said in what is supposedly a private medium during the 'heat of battle' is a nonsense.

I do partially agree though that drivers should be more than capable of some decorum when using harsh language in public interviews, but this should be dealt with on a case by case basis and not a one-size-fits-all punishment. And certainly nothing that would ever affect the points standings of a driver or team.

Edit: *by public I mean, available to all other teams and broadcasts.
 
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GravyMonster said:
I do partially agree though that drivers should be more than capable of some decorum when using harsh language in public interviews, but this should be dealt with on a case by case basis and not a one-size-fits-all punishment. And certainly nothing that would ever affect the points standings of a driver or team.
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See, this is where I disagree. It's a high adrenaline sport, and I want to hear their real unedited thoughts. I want personalities, not robots.

In the previous industry I worked, and with my upbringing, and I guess just being from Scotland, bad language was just the norm.
Of course I can turn it off easily. I'm not driving insane pieces of engineering (even if they are horrifically giant barges) though. Most of the drivers are very young, most of them are not native English speakers either. Enough with the policing.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
See, this is where I disagree. It's a high adrenaline sport, and I want to hear their real unedited thoughts. I want personalities, not robots.
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And it's what Vettel has always said too. If you want to hear unedited thoughts of drivers at 240mph then you've got to accept that it's going to be that way.

If you put a microphone on a footballer they aren't going to be all hugs and kisses.
 
I don't have any issues with swearing at all, imo the more you try to stop something the more shock it gets when it is used. having said that I don't see why drivers can't moderate their language in press interviews as that is not a high adrenaline situation, on track either bleep out, allow fully or just don't broadcast the radio message that contains swearing, it's not that hard but the FIA/FOM know that if they keep broadcasting the drivers will swear as thats just how it goes and they'll get more money from them in fines.

imo MBS is doing this to get money and stamp his authority rather than any other motive becauase it's so easy to stop swearing being broadcast.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
GravyMonster said:
I do partially agree though that drivers should be more than capable of some decorum when using harsh language in public interviews, but this should be dealt with on a case by case basis and not a one-size-fits-all punishment. And certainly nothing that would ever affect the points standings of a driver or team.
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See, this is where I disagree. It's a high adrenaline sport, and I want to hear their real unedited thoughts. I want personalities, not robots.
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To be clear, I agree with this. Drivers should be free to say what they like while full of adrenaline during a race. They are speaking to their team only. Any radios played out are the responsibility of the TV director so a driver should not be punished for that.

However in an pre/post race interview, or even at a non-race weekend public event, then they should be able to filter themselves to suit their audience, as you or I would have to do in our daily lives.
 
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In immediate post race, as-in getting out the car and immediately having a mic put in your face, I don’t think they should be applying some filter.

At any other time, of course.
I don’t believe every second word should be one that’s on a bleep filter, but I’d far rather just hear someone say what they want to say. Given rules from awful FIA leadership, I’d prefer not to hear a single word from any of them now.
 
Who got fined? I've missed a lot of the news, clearly.
t2na said:
If you put a microphone on a footballer they aren't going to be all hugs and kisses.
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Well they tried putting mics on football refs and that lasted all of a week or so because of all the abuse they receive on the pitch :p
Emlyn_Dewar said:
In immediate post race, as-in getting out the car and immediately having a mic put in your face, I don’t think they should be applying some filter.
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I agree and disagree with your point. In the car, driving I don't care what language is used but as a spectator I retain the right to think "ohh that's harsh on the team" or "he's being a ****" and pull up the drivers on what they're actually saying. You can tell a lot about a driver with how they direct their anger/upset whilst driving.

On the flipside, some of this came about because of swearing in the press conferences which are a million miles away from the energy and adrenaline. It shouldn't be a big deal to ask drivers not to swear in press conferences... Other sportsmen (footballers for example) manage it fine and they have way less brain cells than your average F1 driver :p Indeed where I disagree with the above is that a driver should be able to compose themselves after stepping out of the car and doing the post-race interview. It's part of the job. Footballers get interviewed as they come off the pitch don't they? How often do they swear live on Sky Sports at 5pm in the afternoon? :confused:
 
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Emlyn_Dewar said:
In immediate post race, as-in getting out the car and immediately having a mic put in your face, I don’t think they should be applying some filter.

At any other time, of course.
I don’t believe every second word should be one that’s on a bleep filter, but I’d far rather just hear someone say what they want to say. Given rules from awful FIA leadership, I’d prefer not to hear a single word from any of them now.
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Honestly I think the FIAs meddling here is a very minor issue - they're worried about some naughty words but that's not really what stops the drivers showing much personality IMO - i think that's far more driven by PR conscious teams that don't want their drivers to start throwing accusations around, making comments etc. Whether they're allowed to swear a bit or not, we're always going to see filtered personality in most cases because the teams simply don't want the PR grief involved if they rolled up to the media pen mouthing off about stuff :p
 
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