FIA race director Niels Wittich’s reminder to drivers of the safety rules regarding jewellery and underwear put Formula 1’s governing body on a collision course with Lewis Hamilton last weekend. But he wasn’t the only driver who spoke out against the clampdown.
Drivers were put on notice about this earlier in the year. In Miami the FIA took it a step further, reminding them jewellery may increase the risk of burns in the event of a fire, and may hinder medical interventions as well as any required treatment after an accident.It has been widely referred to as a ‘jewellery ban’, but the rule isn’t new to Formula 1, having been introduced in 2005. However the FIA has stepped up its enforcement, warning to those competing the “wearing of jewellery in the form of body piercings or metal neck chains is prohibited during the competition and may therefore be checked before the start.”
The push from the governing body was met with resistance, as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who has many piercings, felt personally aggrieved by the rule. Sebastian Vettel even went so far as to claim the push from the FIA was “targeted to Lewis”.
Hamilton’s accessories have never previously triggered action by the FIA, or been reported to the stewards. He has pointed out some of his piercings are fixed in place, and reiterated his refusal to remove them last weekend.
He challenged the inconsistent application of the rule, which was put in place two years before his grand prix debut. “I’ve been in the sport 16 years, I’ve been wearing jewellery for 16 years, in the car I only ever have my earrings on, and my nose ring, which I can’t even remove.”
“It seems unnecessary for us to get into this spat,” he added, saying he’ll “try to communicate” about the matter with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. “I’m here to be an ally of the sport, of Mohammed and Formula 1.
“And as I said, I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry, bigger things to do, more impact to have. So, I think that’s really where the focus should be.”
His boss Toto Wolff urged “a dialogue between Lewis and Mohammed” to strike a balance between safety and freedom of expression.
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“It is clear that regulations are here to protect the drivers,” said Wolff. “On the other side, we need to keep the possibility on diversity and the means of expression and expressing yourself. And we know that this is important for Lewis.”
There are seemingly grey areas in the rule. It does not specifically explain what to do with certain pieces of symbolic jewellery like wedding rings.
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen had no interest in picking up a fine, and ensured he was fully compliant with the rules in Miami. But he feels there should be certain exemptions.
“I don’t want to pay the €250,000 (£214,000) fine,” he said. “I understand what they are they saying, but it is a wedding ring around your finger,” he said.
“I’ll take a little bit of extra burn on my finger to race in my wedding ring. And if something was going to happen, something bad, I would want to wear my wedding ring. It kind of feels bad to take it off.
“With something like that, like your wedding ring, let us take that responsibility. There must be somehow to remove liability.”
After decades of safety improvements reduced the frequency of fires, the shocking 2020 crash suffered by Magnussen’s then-team mate Roman Grosjean refocused minds on the dangers. Grosjean’s hands were severely burnt after an enormous crash when his car exploded in a fireball.
However the former Haas driver stated even now, with the scars visible on his hands, he would never remove his wedding ring before climbing into the cockpit. “I’ve been wearing my wedding ring all of my career,” he told Sky.
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“Where my ring was I was protected, so I was protected by my wife, saved by my kids. I understand some of it, but I wouldn’t like to race without my wedding ring. That is big for me.”
Hamilton, who was given a temporary exemption to continue wearing his fixed items of jewellery, seized on that distinction. “I got an exemption here, I’ll get an exemption the rest of the year,” he insisted after the race. “Wedding rings are allowed.”
He said: “I appreciate FIA are looking after our safety. That’s also their priority and our priority. My personal case, I have also religious items that I wear with me, when I’m racing, which are important to me, which I don’t feel comfortable not having with me driving the car, and I do feel it’s a little bit personal. We should have the freedom to do what feels right for us.
“At the end of the day, we have the responsibility to go out there put our life at risk. And I do feel it should be a personal choice, but I respect the FIA and their will to always improve the safety. But I’ll appreciate a talk with them, to see if we can find a better solution than such a strict decision as they made. So we’ll see what we can do.”
The FIA undoubtedly has the drivers’ best interests at heart in this matter. And perhaps the drivers have become a little too accustomed to having things done their own way. But the way the FIA has gone about it leaves something to be desired.
What will happen to Hamilton if he refuses to back down and fails to gain a further exemption? There has been no official document explaining what happens if rules are broken by drivers but, as Magnussen indicated, they expect hefty fines for non-compliance.
However at the Monaco EPrix, Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein and Jaguar’s Mitch Evans were each handed a penalty point on their superlicences after they were found to be wearing necklaces during the qualifying session. As in F1, if drivers accumulate enough superlicence points they automatically incur a race ban.
On Friday, Hamilton made it clear he is prepared for that possibility. “If they stop me, then so be it,” he said. “We’ve got a spare driver.” The battle lines are therefore drawn: To enforce its ‘bling ban’, the FIA may have to bench F1’s most famous and successful driver.
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 12:02
Each and every one of these drivers is free not to compete in an FIA-sanctioned series if they find it beyond their means to comply with the standards set out in the FIA’s Internation Sporting Code.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 12:04
*International
pastaman
12th May 2022, 15:01
Well aren’t you just Mr. High-and-Mighty
slowmo (@slowmo)
12th May 2022, 15:04
Indeed and Hamilton has said he’s prepared to be banned for it so what is the problem.
davidhunter13 (@davidhunter13)
12th May 2022, 17:31
Well if that’s the case and the rules must be strictly followed then I look forward to Hamilton being crowned 8 times world champion and Verstappen stripped of his title, since the race director completely usurped the correct procedures.
Silfen (@silfen)
12th May 2022, 18:43
In that case Hamilton must be stripped of a most of his titles since he doesn’t follow the rules for quite a while now.
Noframingplease (@)
12th May 2022, 18:50
@davidhunter13 I gues you follow F1 from british media? Otherwise you should have known the 2021 season was more than the last race. And in those other 20 races there where plenty occasions where ‘your GOAT’ did some driving which was not according ‘the rules’. Let’s begin with race 1 of 2021 when he crossed 29 time the tracklimit…..
RomTrain (@romtrain)
12th May 2022, 20:34
In case you forgot: Last season WDC was decided / manipulated in the last race.
Noframingplease (@)
12th May 2022, 22:10
@romtrain Exactly, cuze when sir L had nicely followed his line in silverstone just like he did with leclerc and when the fia wasn’t so eager to listen to Toto’s stakeholdermanagement (read: changing the rules during the season) the last race wouldn’t have such an impact. If that last race was manipulated, like his fans like to talk about, how big was the manipulation of MB during the whole season? I’don’t expect any normal answer as your british bias is so big. I repeat, 29 times an advantage by crossing the tracklimit. I didn’t hear GB shouting ‘rules must be obeyed’ then, like we hear them the last 15 months. race 1….20 to go…Do you follow? Or has that ‘manipulation’ been growing more like an obsession?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
13th May 2022, 0:00
Absolutely agree with noframing, you can call us anti-hamilton as much as you like, but here’s the main point you guys are leaving out: the championship is made up of 20 + races, and if you want to dig into what was done wrong in abu dhabi, you can also dig into what was done wrong in spa, imola, baku, hungary, bahrain, silverstone as some examples.
Roman
13th May 2022, 11:12
Spa: someone was gifted a racewin and many points, although there was no race.
Imola: I honestly dont remember
Baku: VER got bad luck blowing up his tire, HAM got bad luck with some brake-setting
Hungary: Crashs at start happen sometimes, nothing special here.
Bahrain: Handling of track limits changed throughout the race
Silverstone: racing incident
Monza: Verstappen took out Ham on purpose without proper penalty
Brazil: Verstappen tried to take out Ham and again got no proper penalty
Jeddah: Verstappen brake-tested Ham and again got no proper penalty
Abu Dhabi: Verstappen got gifted the win of race and WDC by the RD not following the rules
Btw: Not everyone disagreeing with the manipulation of the WDC is automatically british. As not everyone agreeing with the manipulation is dutch.
Noframingplease (@)
14th May 2022, 20:42
@roman Interesting list, especially when you are mentioning actions which where not good for Max as ‘raceincident, nothing special’, and actions which where not so good for the brit, as ‘took out on lewis, and not a penalty for Max’. Hilarious reaction.
Hey, why not a 5 race penalty for lewis after Silverstone? Raceincident? Yep, that’s your opinion, not a fact. The fact is he got a penalty which was’ in my opinion, way the low.
I see your memory has some blind spots when it suits your opinion. That’s not a big surprise.
Oh, imola was that race where lewis was crashing into the wall but ‘managed ‘ to come back cuze Bottas organized a red flag.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
13th May 2022, 10:13
@nofanboysplease It is because I know F1 is more than the last race that I know Max is only stated as champion because the FIA broke its own regulations on multiple occasions (most glaringly, when it decided to start the Belgian Grand Prix with no medical cover, thus granting Max 12.5 unearned points).
Noframingplease (@)
14th May 2022, 20:51
@alianora-la-canta So belgium is also an ‘unearned’ race’? Than Hungary, and Silverstone must be very unearned for Lewis though? Even the first race, where he crossed the tracklimit 29 times is in your way of argumentation ‘unearned’ In both races (silverstone hungary) a MB crashed Max out, and won Lewis. Interesting way of thinking you have.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
16th May 2022, 20:09
@nofanboysplease 1) What rule did the FIA break (not simply test/push/nudge, but outright break) in those races?
2) If a substantive answer is supplied to 1), would that not strengthen the notion that 2021 was an irredeemable mess and thus the FIA may not be in a position to award a championship anywhere? (Bear in mind that I am of the opinion that the 2021 title should be set aside, not re-awarded).
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
13th May 2022, 0:02
Oh, might want to point out you managed to start a who deserved the 2021 title discussion with people who are otherwise on hamilton’s side on the matter that is related to this article.
Aapje (@aapje)
13th May 2022, 11:38
@davidhunter13
I didn’t know that Max was the race director.
Pjotr (@pietkoster)
14th May 2022, 11:06
Now they (Mercedes) wanted Masi gone, the one that didn’t had a problem with jewelry. There you have it. The snake bites his own tail.
Kris Lord
12th May 2022, 12:13
Drivers crash into concrete and nothing seems to be done to fix it.
Wear jewellery and you’re threatened with a fine or race ban.
The FIA seem to have their priorities wrong.
If the rules aren’t relaxed I can see drivers deciding collectively to not race at a specific event which would be a PR disaster for formula 1.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 12:34
As with every time someone tries to attack a regulator, it is fallacious to claim that the FIA cannot check the 20 drivers on the Formula 1 grid for jewellery worn in the car AND check if the track they are racing on is currently complying with its homologation criteria.
You’ll have to pay that parking ticket even though not everyone speeding is currently being noticed and fined for it, simple as that.
Let’s see how many drivers would decide not to race in support of their three colleagues mentioned above continuing to compete without complying with a 17-year-old rule. 😝
Fraz
12th May 2022, 13:15
suspect there are bigger battle for the FIA to focus on the fresh push on Jewelery this year seems to be a focused backlash after the MAsi incodent to show they are the rule makers.
If drivers are happy to wave the liability and accept the responsibility I dont see an issue with drivers, riders and competitors wearing jewelry that is confined under suit or helmet, Possibly a maximum size, weight / Mass so someone cant wear a 1 kg pendant or a limit to the item not not affecting the suit. e.g. a watch would affect the Glove to suit but a ring would not a cross is confinded under the race suit as are studs and nose ring but big loops arent.
rules within reason. FIA have bigger battles to win.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 13:57
The ‘bigger battles’ narrative has no legs to stand on (not in general, and not specifically here, either), safety is the FIA’s biggest battle, and making and enforcing rules on the series run under its banner is literally its main reason for existing.
You don’t like the rules? Go about changing them. That should be your ‘biggest battle’, rather than posting on the interwebs about how the FIA should totally not enforce a 17-year-old rule because of some supposedly more pressing other issue.
Alternatively, you could lobby the three Formula 1 drivers cited in this article to give up their opposition to said 17-year-old-rule (preceding each and every one of them competing in F1) and either comply or leave for a series not run by the FIA so that the FIA could allocate extra time to whatever you find more important. (if, indeed, such a topic exists and isn’t just used nebulously here as a diversion tactic)
DrG (@drgraham)
12th May 2022, 14:51
@ proesterchen
Really?
You feel this sudden interest in underwear and jewellery (but not rings or watches – items distinctly indicated in all H@S regulations) is somehow of critical importance?
You, feel it’s a logical matter compared to the the farce that ended last year with the invention of rules on the spot for the ‘show’?
That one that ended up gifting a championship to someone while deserving, had absolutely no right to win that race?
Honestly, I have raced for many years, served as an apprentice back in the Horse and cart era and was a director of manufacturing for a large international company and always took any rings, necklace or watch off as drilled into me via regulations from 50 + years ago. Even just visiting the shop floor!
But I was never required at any fia or rac msa meeting to remove my earrings- not one single time…
Let alone having my underpants checked.
Now it’s suddenly a thing?
Could not be anything to do with a tarnished championship and a personal vendetta because of a justified snub or two?
Nope – it’s just that 17 year old regulation, that actually stems back 30+ years.
slowmo (@slowmo)
12th May 2022, 15:06
Safety didn’t seem a big issue last year when Verstappen deliberately crashed into Hamilton twice and attempted a crash on 3 other occasions. Funny how we didn’t see you complaining about safety at that point.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 15:26
@drgraham
I feel that bringing another unrelated topic into this discussion doesn’t change the underlying facts.
The rules exist and have existed for a long time. Every driver racing on an FIA license has signed up to follow and obey the International Sporting Code.
If there are drivers in an FIA series that have decided that abiding by the rules they have agreed to is onerous, there are solutions to that: Lobby to have the rules changed. Don’t participate in any series governed by the rules as they are today.
Robbie (@robbie)
12th May 2022, 15:39
After a comment like that I have to question what you did and didn’t see last year. Or at least the shade of your glasses.
Robbie (@robbie)
12th May 2022, 15:41
@slowmo
slowmo (@slowmo)
12th May 2022, 17:06
@robbie get your eyes tested fella
Noframingplease (@)
12th May 2022, 19:26
@slowmo Funny that his fans where moaning a complete season about following rules (when it suits them). Of course only when the bad ‘bully’ boy did something the GOAT could complain about. But oh jeez, when he has to take of his jewelry for obvious reasons those same rules are overdoing their job. Oh a deliberate attempt for a highspeed crash at silverstone doesn’t count. Oh no, that was of course also the mistake of that bully boy. You are hilarious
RomTrain (@romtrain)
12th May 2022, 20:36
Safety is for sure not their highest goal, when they accept to add tracks like Jeddah.
DrG (@drgraham)
13th May 2022, 10:19
@ proesterchen
You may feel as you wish however you might want to remember that when signing up to those incredibly tight and regulated rules that can be ignored at a moments notice unless your underpants are the wrong colour, you also hand over a huge cheque for many many thousands of pounds!
This is not some simple ‘agree to the rules and you can race’ situation.
Each individual racer spends thousands of pound to fund the FIA – it is their largest income stream by far. Many millions.
If you purchase something it would generally be considered fit for purpose.
Allowing hugely risky situations where an earring or underpants have been involved in the death of lots drivers over the years, I just can’t see why they are wasting time with all these concrete barriers at circuits. Or making up rules so the right people win?. I mean, they have never killed anyone?
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
13th May 2022, 12:20
@drgraham
I have no idea how we’ve now ended up discussing licensing costs as if that has any relevance to the question of the competitor agreeing to obey the FIA’s International Sporting Code with the application for their racing license.
Cause that’s what all the above-mentioned drivers did.
DrG (@drgraham)
13th May 2022, 12:46
@ proesterchen
We are not
We are discussing how some rules are suddenly sacrosanct despite years and years of being ignored. Others are changed at a moment’s notice – ones that impact on a championship and how ‘safety’ in the jewellery and underwear department is suddenly the mantra when it quite clearly is not.
And the fun fact you have to pay a fortune to the chaps that run the license scheme while the chaps and lasses doing the actual work, do it for the love of the sport.
Try to keep up… 😁😁
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
13th May 2022, 10:20
@proesterchen It is perfectly reasonable to point out that the FIA’s actions have contradicted a genuine safety agenda. On this specific issue, consider why wedding rings are exempt, and whether a similarly-sized piece of skin elsewhere on the body is less flammable than the first knuckle of a central finger). Also, this is the second track this year where there have been serious questions about homologation (the other being Saudi Arabia, which according to the FIA’s own rules, should not have even had a Grade 4 accreditation due to its lack of service road, and unlike the Miami barrier, should have resulted in cancellation before anyone tested it out).
Even the FIA doesn’t appear to care about its own rules except when it suits itself, which makes it look less like safety and more like management amusement (which is rather less straightforward to justify).
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
13th May 2022, 10:21
(I also wish to clarify I am pro-jewellery ban, but would favour an actual jewellery ban, not the half-baked effort the FIA has decided to use in 2022, let alone what was happening before).
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
13th May 2022, 10:57
One can of course argue the merit of a rule, any rule, and lobby to have it changed to better suit one’s own vision.
But as long as the current rule exists, and the would-be competitor has signed up for it through his/her license application, abiding by it is not up to negotiation or chumming up to the FIA president. (as Mr Wolff would suggest)
DrG (@drgraham)
14th May 2022, 17:25
Why?
When you signed up to said rules and they were completely ignored to the extent you lost a historic, top of the entire tree, championship, would you even begin to accept a nit picking contradictory rule that has been ignored for years and has absolutely nothing to do with the integrity of the championship, other than to put you, the statistically greatest champion they have ever had, back in the box for fear you might just have a seriously valid point?
You know where you have been completely and totally internationaly embarrassed and might want to lash out?
Nah – can’t possibly be the reason..
All those nose stud death statistics make it so!
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
12th May 2022, 12:15
Chainbear made some excellent points in his video yesterday about the two points made by Lewis and now the other drivers. One being that the fact that it’s not been enforced properly in the past should have to mean they can’t do better to enforce the rule now. It was a mistake that it wasn’t enforced, sure, but that doesn’t imply it should never be enforced.
The second point was about the “it should be the own personal choice of the driver to take the risks since it only affects them” and he was right in positing that there are other rules that are the same that the drivers should then also be allowed to make that choice on. His examples were iirc the HANS-device, helmets, and fireproof racesuits in general.
Most sports ban jewelry, FIA also did, but didn’t enforce the rule properly, that’s on Whiting and his successors, but I think it’s good that we now have race directors and FIA leadership that is more clear on the rulebook being the rulebook. Have teams and drivers have a say in making and adapting the rules in said rulebook (to an acceptable level, of course, the FIA should always be the one making the call on those), but once it’s in the rulebook, it should honestly be law.
Fraz
12th May 2022, 13:17
Being clearer on the rule book is fine. The actual issue is how FIA went about it. IF they advised that from 2023 this rule would need to be enforced more stringently because of X, Y & Z then I suspect it would have been readily accepted but the sudden and apparent unseen renforcment of a rule which appears to target the driver who just caused a bit of an embaracement for the FIA seems like a bit of a targeted power play.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
12th May 2022, 13:28
A 2 months notice on a rule like this seems like a fair amount to me though.
I do have a problem with people and Lewis pretending this rule is all about him. He’s making it about him because he’s insisting on not complying with it, it’s reversed to say the FIA did this just to spite him, I see no evidence on that and it comes across as a tactic to get out of obeying it, rather than an actual thing.
Alec Glen (@alec-glen)
12th May 2022, 13:58
How is he not supposed to feel targeted? He’s the only driver with piercings and previously known to wear jewelry in the car. It’s been reported here that on conference calls, the new President of the FIA has been repeatedly adamant about the enforcement of these rules over apparently anything else. So we’ve got an FIA President with a personal campaign (FIA provided no previous context) who’s suddenly hellbent on preventing “the wearing of jewellery in the form of body piercing or metal neck chains” when there is only one driver known for wearing them.
That’s as close to targeting as you can get, that Toto is suggesting Lewis needs to take it up with Mohammed directly says it all.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 14:44
How can any driver be targetted by a rule that has existed longer than his/her participation in the sport?
As for Toto, that just shows he’s stuck in a DTM mindset, where the competitors ran the show. (into the ground)
Maybe the FIA president can give him and his driver a primer on how to lobby for a change of the rules if that’s what they want to spend their free time advocating for?
DrG (@drgraham)
12th May 2022, 14:54
Jeez – see above
While glorifying a completely tarnished championship
There are far more deserving hills to die on in fia regulations- literally!
anon
12th May 2022, 23:35
@sjaakfoo the argument that the rule came in on safety grounds is debatable, because the original announcement by the FIA back in 2005 did not actually state that the change was for safety reasons.
The World Motorsport Council announcement from the time shows the rule change came from the World Motorsport Council, who then sent the proposal to the FIA’s medical commission and asked them to approve it – for a change apparently for medical reasons, it seems rather odd that the medical commission were not involved in drafting this legislation and they were only consulted at the end of the process.
The original statement from the World Motorsport Council also did not provide any justification on medical grounds for the ban either – it simply stated that it would be imposing a ban on piercings and chains, with safety not being mentioned anywhere within the original statement.
The safety argument is one that appears to have been retrospectively applied to that original announcement from 2005, with some contemporary suggestions that the ban was more of a cultural decision than a medical one – i.e. that the FIA introduced the ban because a driver with a piercing did not fit with the image that the FIA wanted its drivers to uphold, nor did it fit particularly well with the type of sponsors (particularly blue chip companies) that the sport was chasing at the time.
Erikje
12th May 2022, 12:15
Indeed, rules and regulations change over the course of years.
Every sport had limitations for the participants.
Not comply with them is stopping participating.
Martin Elliott
12th May 2022, 12:17
Unfortunately, yet again, FIA demonstrates it does not understand or manage “Safety” in a modern consistent manner as nearly all hazardous industries such as aviation, chemicals, mining, etc. The philosophies and legislation has developed over at least 4 decades.
They have never published the report, just a press release, of the Grosjean inquiry. In fact since Jules Bianchi incident report in 2014, no report of any inquiry (~20 a year) have been issued.
The Grosjean incident is now being used as an empirical reason to reactivate a 17yo rule that has hardly been enforced. There is some talk of ‘harm’ and an increase ‘risk’ due to jewellery, but it is not qualitatively or quantitatively explained as intolerable despite all the other safety improvements over the years. If it was infact tolerable and not enforced for more that a decade, then what has Grosjean brought up as a single incident.
In broader terms, yes teams/drivers have been asking for consistent enforcement of rules, but I think they also want them to be fit for purpose, and demonstrated to be so if new or resurrected.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
12th May 2022, 12:29
It’s weird that you mention the Grosjean incident as some kind of prime example of how they don’t do anything.
Because I’ve just looked at said “press release” and it concludes with a 23-point plan on how they will improve safety or investigate even further on how to prevent said incident in the future.
I get it, it’s easy to dump on the FIA for everything, but to deny their vast efforts on safety to the point where driver injuries and deaths are so uncommon that it sends shockwaves around the world when something does inevitably happen when a car crashes at 300kph, is just a rather silly way to go about it. The fact remains that we’ve gone from drivers getting injured and worse several times every season year-in year-out to Grosjean surviving the crash he did with relative minor injuries and driving in Indycar a half a year later is not something that the FIA should be slammed for.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th May 2022, 12:35
+1
F1JohnS (@)
13th May 2022, 13:31
+2
DrG (@drgraham)
12th May 2022, 15:00
Well, I do not know you but I am fairly certain you have not risked your life racing for either enjoyment or reward under these ‘critical’ jewellery and underwear regulations that the fia were the last to endorse compared to other motorsport bodies. While excluding the very items that cause statistically the majority of accidents within any dangerous environment.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
13th May 2022, 10:30
The inquiries are available to people with the necessary clearances on the FIA website (I think FIA membership is the condition, rather than anything higher-level than that), it’s simply that most of the inquiries have results that are assumed not to be all that interesting (for example, it was a near-miss, the results prove stuff that was already known and was already being acted upon, or the series in question doesn’t have the profile to get the attention to warrant publication). It’s only the occasional serious and high-profile accident that individual press releases get issued.
Craig
12th May 2022, 12:19
With the number of grey areas and allowances (such as wedding rings, religious items and glasses) I can see why this rule wasn’t heavily pushed previously, but now it is being heavily pushed out of the blue it makes the contradictions glaring.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
12th May 2022, 12:31
Out of the blue seems unfair, they told the drivers and teams it was coming several months ago, plenty of time for all drivers to make plans on how to comply.
Craig
12th May 2022, 13:10
Point still stands that there’s a lot of contradictions, a fine example being Wehrlein/Evans (given penalty points for wearing necklaces) vs Gasly (allowed to wear necklace as it’s a ‘religious item’). The rule is very much in need of a review.
Hugh Jazz
12th May 2022, 12:24
Ban their teams, problem solved. Fed up of these princesses crying because they cannot wear their favourite necklaces. What a terrible example.