Gunther Steiner criticizes FIA for swearing issue: “They created a controversy over nothing”. Gunther Steiner hits out at FIA over swearing controversy.

The former Haas team principal explained how he would have acted in place of the FIA president to avoid triggering the drivers’ protest.

He was directly mentioned by Alex Wurz, the president of the GPDA: in commenting on the long-standing issue of swearing in F1, the former Austrian driver joked about how many hours of community service Gunther Steiner would have to serve. The South Tyrolean manager has indeed become well-known to the public for his colorful language, which has made him one of the standout characters in the Netflix docu-series *Drive to Survive*. And it is precisely about the swearing in press conferences, which led to Max Verstappen’s reprimand, that the former Haas team principal wanted to talk about during the presentation of his new autobiography *Unfiltered*.

The former Haas boss defends Max Verstappen

“Max didn’t insult anyone,” Gunther Steiner told BBC Sport, “he just used a swear word to describe his car. So I don’t think anyone was offended by it. I believe the best way to handle it would have been not to make a big deal out of it. They should have sat down with the drivers—they all have a meeting together before every race—and said, ‘Okay guys, could you please tone it down a bit? We at the FIA aren’t particularly fond of this.’ Instead, they publicly said, ‘You’ll be fined, you’ll get a penalty if you swear.’ We know these guys have a certain ego, and inevitably they responded by saying they didn’t want to stop. So this whole controversy was created for nothing.” – the former Haas team principal pointed out.

Gunther Steiner then spoke about his own use of swear words, joking that he’s “a good guy”: “I don’t swear, you’ve heard me in plenty of press conferences over the years. I curse when I’m in the heat of battle, not during interviews. I do it in intense moments when there’s a lot of adrenaline and emotions. We often say we have to think about the children watching, but the truth is kids hear swear words everywhere. Swearing today is very different compared to 20 years ago. It’s a different story when someone is insulted. But I can still understand it if a driver swears during a race because he’s going 350 km/h and someone cut him off. It’s normal that he doesn’t say, ‘Hey friend, you shouldn’t have done that.’” – the former Haas team principal concluded.