EVENTS
Marko: Verstappen has to be taken seriously on threat to quit F1
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes people should take Max Verstappen‘s threats to walk away from Formula 1 seriously in the wake of his swearing row with the FIA.
Over the Singapore weekend, Verstappen was handed a community service punishment by the FIA over using the F-word in an official FIA press conference while describing his Red Bull car behaviour.
The punishment followed a new push from FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to further clamp down on offensive language being broadcast on TV, something F1 had already been doing.
In response, Verstappen staged a protest over the remainder of the Singapore weekend, refusing to provide full answers to questions in FIA press conferences and instead holding his own media gatherings.
In those calls, he made thinly veiled threats that the FIA’s policies are sapping his enjoyment out of competing in F1, and would likely push him out the door sooner rather than later.
“I’m at a stage of my career where I don’t want to be dealing with this all the time. It’s really tiring,” he said.
“Of course, it’s great to have success and win races, but once you have accomplished all that, winning championships and races, then you want to just have a good time as well.
“If you have to deal with all these kinds of silly things: for me, that is not a way of continuing in the sport, that’s for sure.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, in the garage with Helmut Marko, Consultant, Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Speaking exclusively to Autosport’s German sister publication Motorsport-Total, Red Bull’s Marko said his protege isn’t bluffing about leaving the series.
“You have to take Max seriously,” he said. “He has achieved a great deal, but it is important to him that he also enjoys the whole sport. If that is increasingly spoiled for him, then he is of a character that when he says, ‘OK, that’s it,’ he means it seriously, but I hope that the current situation won’t really cause him to retire soon.”
Marko felt the different stakeholders in the series are maintaining double standards, with former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner’s prolific swearing making him a cult hero on Netflix’s Drive to Survive series.
Read Also:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/how-worried-should-f1-be-about-verstappen-walking-away/10657853/
“Yes, that’s not understandable and there are double standards,” the Austrian nodded. “And on top of that, Max didn’t mean a person. He meant the car, an object, and he did it in a flippant way.
“Okay, maybe in an afternoon press conference, if it’s all going to be handled so strictly you’ll just take a different approach in the future. But it’s clearly over the top.”
Ahead of October’s US Grand Prix in Austin, the F1 drivers’ association GPDA and representatives from the FIA and F1 are set to hold private talks to air concerns, with Verstappen receiving backing from several of his colleagues over the matter.
Watch: Is Max Verstappen Ready to leave F1? – F1 Singapore GP Updates
Anambra State Govt. Rescues 13 Children From Traffickers, Arrests Suspects
By OCHA Brigade Media
13 children have been rescued from suspected child traffickers in Otolo Nnewi by a joint taskforce of Operation Clean And Healthy Anambra, OCHA Brigade and Anambra State Ministry of Women Affairs.
The joint taskforce also confiscated fake documents that aided the trafficking.
The children were found malnourished and have been denied education.
Report say that the trafficker adopts and sold children to people from different parts of the country.
The suspected trafficker, Angela Okechukwu and her collaborators were also arrested.
Speaking, the Managing Director of OCHA Brigade, Comrade Celestine Anere who frowned at the poor health condition the children who are aged between two and twelve years are subjected to, assured that the state government will continue to crack down on all sorts of illegality and warning all criminal minded individuals to relocate from the state or face the full wrath of the law.
Some of the residents of the community, Ikechukwu Nnabuike and Ifechukwu Okoro recalled several interventions they had made against the woman but fell on deaf ears and appreciated the state government for the rapid intervention to end the unlawful act.
Governor UZODINMA has offered yet again free transportation buses from Lagos to *Owerri, Okigwe* and *Orlu* . The buses are free for Imolites from Lagos to Imo State on *24th December* and back to Lagos on *4th January* .
A renowned Edo son, General Godwin Osagie Abbe is dead.
FLASHBACK: “Jonathan Is A Drunk, A Sinking Fisherman”— Tinubu’s Past Insults On Jonathan Resurfaces As Police Begin Crackdown On Citizens Criticizing Govt Officials
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