Formula One’s Mercedes and Ferrari team bosses have been served with official warnings after swearing in a news conference.
Stewards said the language used by Toto Wolff and Frederic Vasseur was “unacceptable” for people who had “high public profiles” and were “role models”.
In both cases, the stewards accepted there were “mitigating circumstances” involved that led to the use of swear words.
Governing body the FIA said the language was “not consistent with” its values.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was involved in taking up the matter following conversations at the highest levels of the governing body after last weekend’s race in Las Vegas.
An FIA statement said: “The FIA regards language of this type to be unacceptable, moving forward, particularly when used by participants in the sport who have a high public profile and who are seen by many, especially younger, followers of the sport, as role models, and that in future the FIA will not tolerate the use of such language in FIA forums by any stakeholder.”
Vasseur swore in the context of the damage caused to Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz’s car when it hit a manhole cover early in first practice in Las Vegas.
The incident wrote off Sainz’s Ferrari and required the team to build up a new car with a new engine, which led to a 10-place grid penalty for using more than the permitted number of engine parts this season.
The report issued by stewards into the incident said Ferrari boss Vasseur “was extremely upset and frustrated by the incident that had occurred in FP1 and that language such as this, by him, was not usual”.
In the case of Mercedes’ Wolff, his swearing came after a journalist interrupted one of his answers to complain the Austrian was talking “absolute rubbish”.
The report said: “The use of the language concerned was in this case unusual and was provoked by an abrupt interjection during the press conference and therefore cannot be regarded as typical from this team principal.”
