The Ethics of F1: Blog 2

This week's topic is on ethical issues in sports currently. Now there are many different instances like Trevor Bauer, Simon Biles, the Washington football team etc., but I want to take a different approach. I want to discuss the overall morality and ethics of the most prominent racing series in the world: Formula 1. Now I must confess, I am a fairly new fan of the series and have been watching for almost two plus years. In my late nights of thought while following and learning about the culture of Formula 1, I often questioned some of the tactics not only used by the team principles but also of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile or the FIA for short. Formula one has often been attributed to the massive amounts of cash that is delegated to each team yearly.

In last year's Formula 1 season, the reigning champs Mercedes still had a $425 Million budget (according to www.racefans.net), despite being the dominating champs for the past 7 years. Now, the FIA has taken steps to regulate the monetary values in which teams can operate, setting a $140 Million cost cap in which all teams have to follow. As the FIA began their mumbles of a cost cap, Lewis Hamilton, the defending world champion and the only African-American driver in the series, began to look at the morality in which these teams can even spend such money. After dealing with racist remarks at almost every grand-prix, Hamilton started to believe that Formula 1 “has not changed anything” in the inclusion of different diversities around the world (According to The New York Times). Although Hamilton was satisfied with how his team supported him, the FIA was quite behind. Hamilton compared the Formula 1 series to other major sports, and saw the lack of unity behind diversity and it is still something he speaks out about today. With Hamilton starting the Hamilton Commission, the focus is “on exploring how motorsport can be used as a vehicle to engage more young people from Black backgrounds with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and, ultimately, employ them on our teams or in other engineering sectors.”

Now this isnt the only issue that Formula 1 faces. There is also an issue that is almost generally accepted, and that is “pay-drivers”. These are drivers that rely on their parents or families money to make the road to F1 so much easier. One example of a “pay driver” is Nikita Mazepin, who currently drives for Haas. Nikita has already developed the ever so fitting “Maze-Spin” nickname, as he is more well known for his spin outs than he is his overtakes. Teams use these pay drivers because the money that they bring in towards their own financial eligibility outways the somewhat bad performances of said drivers. Nikita is only one example of the many pay drivers that have graced us with their presence in the series. As you can see Formula 1 has a couple issues at the forefront that they might need to pay attention to. Remember, Formula 1 is a business so assuming they will do anything that would lose them money, is quite a stretch.