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Formula 1 drivers will risk points deductions and bans for 'misconduct' breaches under the new guidelines issued by the championship's governing body, the FIA, to stewards.
The guidelines have been made public with the official release of the FIA's 2025 International Sporting Code, as part of Appendix B to the Code.
In the past, Appendix B was the FIA's 'code of good conduct' - but now it is where stewards' penalty guidelines are outlined, with the ISC amended accordingly to point to said penalty guidelines.
Five specific items are listed in the new document, outlining the prescribed penalties for beaches of various entries in Article 12.2.1 of the ISC - specifically subsections f), l), n), o) and p).
It means that, for instance, "causing moral injury or loss to the FIA" or its officials - a breach of subsection f) - now carries a prescribed first offence penalty of €10,000.
However, it is also outlined in the document that multipliers are to be applied to the base fine depending on the competition level - with a specific tier reserved for F1, where base fines should be multiplied by four.
It means that "causing moral injury or loss to the FIA' as an F1 driver is now supposed to carry a penalty of €40,000 on first offence, €80,000 on second offence (plus a suspended one-month suspension) and €120,000 on third offence (plus an actual one-month suspension and a deduction of an unspecified amount of championship points).
The same penalty structure now applies to "any public incitement to violence or hatred" as well as "any misconduct" as defined by Article 20 ("Definitions') of the ISC.
In it, misconduct is "to be understood in particular but not limited to" as "the general use of language that is offensive, insulting, coarse, rude or abusive" and acts of "assaulting" and "incitement" to acts that fall into either of the two previous categories.
The Max Verstappen swearing punishment during the Singapore Grand Prix weekend last year that so incensed F1 drivers was issued due to a breach of that very misconduct rule
"The general making and display of political, religious and personal statements or comments notably in violation of the general principle of neutrality promoted by the FIA under its Statutes, unless previously approved in writing" is also to be fined and penalised under the same structure, albeit with the added requirement of the offending party issuing a "public apology and repudiation of comments".
The guidelines also state that FIA stewards "have the authority to decide what penalty to enforce" and "retain the discretion to take into account any mitigating and/or aggravating circumstances as well as the nature and the location of the event".
The change is highly unlikely to go down well with F1 drivers, who by and large remained at odds with the current FIA regime headed by president Mohammed Ben Sulayem over how matters like these are to be policed as the 2024 season concluded.
