Yuki Tsunoda has been fined forty thousand euros following the first qualifying session of the Austrian Grand Prix. The Japanese driver was waiting his turn to enter the track during Q1 but was cut off by Guanyu Zhou’s C44. Tsunoda did not mince words about Zhou over the team radio, and thanks to the FIA, it cost him dearly.
Guanyu Zhou and his team faced the wrath of the young Japanese driver on Saturday. Zhou parked his car rather awkwardly in front of Yuki Tsunoda at the start of Q1, which led to the latter berating him. “These guys are f*cking retarded,” he told his engineer, which roughly translates to ‘these guys are absolutely stupid’.
Validity
Many people reacted with shock on social media to the footage of Tsunoda’s outburst. Many of them felt that the words of the Visa RB driver were discriminatory. The use of the word ‘retarded’ is indeed a form of validity, or discrimination against people with disabilities.
As a result, Tsunoda was summoned to the stewards and was later handed a fine of forty thousand euros. The FIA ruled that the 24-year-old driver had made an ‘inappropriate remark’ that does not align with the organization’s code of conduct. Half of the fine must be paid immediately, the rest will be waived if he behaves for the rest of the season. Tsunoda has since apologized, but also defended himself by stating that English is not his first language.
The FIA stewards were not idle on Saturday. Mercedes also received a ticket from the organization. Lewis Hamilton swung an exhaust pipe into the pit lane while exiting his garage box. His team was fined five thousand euros for this so-called ‘unsafe release’. Max Verstappen, who was briefly ‘under investigation’ for driving too slowly in the pit lane, was not fined.
