Max Verstappen will serve his community service sentence to be sworn in at an FIA press conference in Rwanda, where Formula 1’s governing body will present its end-of-season awards this coming week.
Verstappen will be officially crowned 2024 world champion on Friday night at the FIA’s annual awards ceremony, which this year is being held in Africa for the first time at an event in the Rwandan capital Kigali – and will take on some young racing drivers. part of his visit.
The Red Bull driver received F1’s equivalent of community service at the Singapore Grand Prix in September after using an offhand expression at Thursday’s press conference to describe the Red Bull car’s performance at the previous event.
Stewards at the event said that while Verstappen’s language was considered “coarse, rude” and “might cause offence”, it was noted that his words were not directed at any individual or team.
However, the ruling added that “as this matter has been raised in the past and is known to the competitors”, Verstappen was given a “larger penalty” than previously imposed in other similar circumstances and that the Dutchman would be “obliged to carry out some project of public interest”.
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Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris don’t think it was right for Max Verstappen to be punished for swearing by the FIA.
An FIA statement said: “The FIA has announced the details of Max Verstappen’s ‘public interest project’ duty relating to the stewards’ penalty for using unacceptable language during the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix drivers’ press conference.
“Verstappen will travel to next week’s FIA General Meetings awards ceremony in Kigali, Rwanda to collect his fourth consecutive FIA Formula 1 World Championship trophy.
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Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Ginder Steiner gives his thoughts on Max Verstappen being given community service to be sworn in at a press conference
“The activity will feature an FIA Affordable Cross Car built locally in Rwanda by the RAC from designs provided by the FIA.
“Design blueprints for the Level 2 Affordable Cross Car category project have been delivered to the global network of 147 National Sporting Authorities (ASNs).”
The punishment came after FIA president Mohamed Ben Sulayem said in an interview published earlier in the day that he wanted to see less driver swearing broadcast on F1’s global television feed and that the sport’s stars had a responsibility to they look after them. language too.
In protest at his ban, Verstappen limited his answers to questions in his next two appearances at FIA press conferences in Singapore and instead held his own media meetings with journalists where he gave longer answers afterwards.
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