04/02/2023
NEWS STORY
Sergio Perez is the latest driver to hit out at the FIA's decision to crack down on drivers expressing their personal opinions about things other than racing.
In late December, an update to the FIA's International Sporting Code means that from now on drivers will now need to obtain written permission before making any form of political statement.
While Zak Brown (sigh) wasted no time in voicing his support for the move, this appeares to be at odds from the general feeling within the sport that the FIA is effectively seeking to gag drivers.
It was during the 2020 season, as F1 struggled to put together a revised schedule, that Lewis Hamilton first brought his activism to the grid, initially by wearing a T-Shirt in support of Black Lives Matter and subsequently throwing his weight behind a number of other controversial causes.
As broadcasters jumped on the bandwagon, F1 gave permission for drivers to show their support for various causes before races, however Hamilton's T-Shirt at Mugello - which sported the slogan: 'Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor' on the front and 'Say Her Name' on the back in reference to the black woman killed by police earlier in the year - saw the FIA take action by demanding that at all future races drivers wear their overalls zipped up to the neck.
Amidst fears that drivers will increasingly use the sport's new found popularity to support all manner of causes, the FIA clearly decided it was time to act, and while the matter is unlikely to be discussed by the drivers until the season gets underway, Sergio Perez, for one, isn't happy.
"We haven't discussed it with the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers' Association)," he told members of the media at the reveal of the RB19, "but it's something that we don't feel comfortable with because we want to be ourselves and we want to be able to express ourselves in any way that we want.
"We all have different views, different beliefs in religion," he added, "I get the political side but we all should be free to express ourselves the way we want.
"I just struggle to think that they will be able to control what you are able to say or not to say. That to me is not correct. But we will discuss that."
Earlier in the week, Valtteri Bottas expressed similar sentiments.
"I think everybody should be allowed to say what they want and do more things that they want or have passion for," the Alfa Romeo driver told Sky Sports.
"People in this world should be free to say what they want," he added. "In a way, I don't see the need for that kind of thing to be in the rules but if you take it politically, let's say from F1's side or the organiser's side of a race, they want everything to go smoothly.
"But normally when we've been speaking it's to try and make the world a better place. That's my view. I don't think it's necessary, but that's Formula 1."
The Finn's claim that "everybody should be allowed to say what they want" is somewhat ironic at a time when, in an obvious attempt to oust the sitting FIA president, comments he posted on his personal website over twenty years ago are being used to beat him with.
And while the likes of Perez, Bottas and the rest may feel they have something to say, what on earth makes them think that the fans want to hear it.
It's bad enough that stars of the music, TV and movie industries are determined to express their beliefs at the drop of a hat, but the fact is that most people who tune in over the course of a race weekend are there for the on-track action not to be lectured to, especially when most of the lecturing comes from the inhabitants of a planet far removed from the stark reality of the lives of those being lectured.
Last year, Sebastian Vettel was forced to admit that it is somewhat hypocritical of him to be echoing the gospel of Greta Thunberg when he had made his fortune driving cars powered by fossil fuels. And while F1 dishes out numerous press releases relating to Net-Zero and the rest, the fact is that the entire circus is ferried around the world - and not using the most environmentally route - using trucks, aircraft and ships that are totally at odds with its claims.
Activism has become an industry, and one only has to look at the vast corporations that have jumped aboard the various causes to realise this.
Aa Perez rightly says, "we all have different views, different beliefs", but that doesn't mean you need to share them, far less impose them, because, sadly, in the current climate that appears to be the objective, with the so-called 'elite' forever telling the rest of us that we're wrong and we're bad as a result.
And anyone who doesn’t agree with this is a...