F1 has to create punishment mechanisms and face culture to fight fan harassment

On the track, last weekend's Austrian Formula 1 GP was one of the best races of the season and marked Charles Leclerc's return to winning ways after a hellish string of shakes in previous weeks. Good for him and for Ferrari, which won even though Carlos Sainz's engine blew up - the third engine blowout in 11 races this year for the Italian team. Off the track, in the stands, what underlined the event was something else, very different and negative. The cases of harassment recorded in the stands over the three days. Although this is not the first time something like this has happened in the crowd, it is a chance to have a serious discussion about what F1 should do from now on to tackle what is starting to become a grotesque habit.

The story started spreading on social media on Saturday and gained worldwide recognition on Sunday morning when F1 released a statement of condemnation dealing with "totally unacceptable comments" made by fans in the stands at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. But what was it about?

Well, those comments were much more than comments, especially from the huge pro-Red Bull and Max Verstappen fans - who were racing at home - and against those willing to cheer on Lewis Hamilton at that circuit. A woman in uniform wearing clothes in honor of Hamilton reported having her skirt lifted by Verstappen's 'Orange Sea' fans. The response from the person responsible for the harassment? "Hamilton fans don't deserve respect." Another fan reported having had his cap stolen and, in a video later released, the fans set fire to the garment. The reports ranged from pure and simple sexual harassment, to bullying, to homophobic and racist statements. These are two examples of many others.

So, first of all, why did Formula 1 react by treating this whole range of diverse harassment as "unacceptable comments". In line with what Gabriel Carvalho said in the last edition of Paddock GP, the BIG PRÊMIO debate program, an unacceptable comment is to say that 'The Pals 2' is a more complete movie than 'The Godfather'. The reports coming from the stands at the Red Bull Ring are disturbing and, in several cases, criminal.

"We have become aware of reports that some fans have been the targets of completely unacceptable comments coming from other fans during the event. We have raised this with the [race] promoter and local security and will listen to anyone who has reported such incidents and is taking it very seriously. This type of behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. All fans must be treated with respect," was the statement from F1 on the Sunday morning of the race.

A demonstration of weakness, yet another of an F1 that is afraid to call things what they are. As in the Nelson Piquet case, the official communiqué doesn't explain what the repudiation is about. It is an empty repudiation. If F1 decided to ban Piquet from the paddock for the case of racism and homophobia against Hamilton, as several vehicles of the British press have reported, why didn't it officially inform, explaining what it is about? It would be an important step to explain the reasons why he took such a decision and where he draws the line of the unacceptable.

In this way, in the slippery slope, hoping that the world will settle around it without more friction than expected, Formula 1 refuses to be forceful. When dealing with Nelson Piquet's case of racism, Damon Hill said something interesting.

"I've long wanted the sport to be abundantly clear about upholding certain values, but the argument against that was that they couldn't be political. That was the answer: we're not a political organization, we can't. But that's not politics: that's decency of human values. And that's what sport has to be about, too," said the 1996 world champion.

In the case of the harassment - directed mainly against social minorities - in Austria, Hill's opinion resonates. Without saying clearly what it defends and what it abhors and for what reasons, with seriousness, without throwing words to the wind in a generic way, F1 shows itself to be purposefully anemic in the defense of values that at this point of society can no longer be seen as political, but as human. It is purely the defense of the dignity of the fans so that Formula One belongs to everyone. After all, this is what the World Championship has been clinging to in recent times, since its translucent popularization among the youngest and 'new' audiences, such as in the United States. These were audiences with whom F1 had historical difficulties, but now it is in these groups that it is swimming in the water.

It is necessary to show, clearly, which side of the defense of human rights one is on. Not least because, unlike in the past, containing harassment no longer looks bad in a financial and advertising market that is still cruel, but has learned that abuse costs money. It is the minimum, therefore, to act.

But more than that, Formula One has to create punishment mechanisms. Because of the size of the audience and the extension of the race tracks, it is more complicated to fix TV images in all corners and at all times than it is in soccer stadiums - but smartphones work as allies. First of all, the security system on site needs to have more control over the situation. This is the responsibility of the promoters, but it is no excuse. F1 has a dialogue with all event promoters on the calendar, and at the end of the day these are more dependent on the championship than vice versa. A series of guidelines on security response to cases like these, of bullying or physical harassment, are more likely to prosper than a particular response from each event or each security to deal with diverse fans.

For example, then, defining that, especially in an area of organized fans, it is necessary to have security watch out for possible fans of rival drivers and teams. This is very important, because a lone person in the midst of a hostile crowd can suffer certain abuses without having witnesses to corroborate any kind of excess. And when seen, to know how to act to identify the aggressor and, besides dealing with the matter at the moment with punishments that can go from a warning to expulsion from the track, depending on the size of the nonsense, to be able to pass the subject's name forward so that the more powerful spheres of the event and of F1 can think of further punishments.

After this first step of identification, Formula One has to have a punishment mechanism. A table, which really works, to respond vehemently and consistently against the most diverse abuses. Which types deserve a financial fine, which should earn a ban of one or more years, and which need to be countered with an eternal ban. Lifting someone's skirt is continuous banning, or should be. All this cannot come out of the head of Stefano Domenicali, the CEO responsible for giving the kiss of death in the 'We Race As One' initiative, or another ignoramus on the matter. It needs to be a plan drawn up by specialists who understand the issues much more than philosophers of shareholder responses. F1 has the logistical capacity to create its own Interpol in the sense of sending to every promoter in the world the identifications of aggressors prevented from entering the vicinity of its own event anywhere in the world.

Real clarity about what you think and what you don't accept, and a plan of action to make safety on the track jump to a higher level and punish aggressors both in the stands and outside are immediate needs that F1 is capable of establishing with some speed.

Readers who have followed the text up to this point may be wondering whether there will be a charge for referring these fans to the judicial sphere, with prosecution and imprisonment. The answer is a little more complicated, because the typification of acts committed at sporting events as criminal acts varies from country to country and can be defined only in the legislative sphere of each nation. So F1 can refer the case and the identifications to the local authorities, but has no police or prosecutorial power to take them forward on its own.

But that's where a next step comes in, in addition to those that have been treated as urgent. As a billion-dollar, worldwide organization, Formula One has a power often overlooked by fans around the world: the power of lobbying. In one famous case, in the late 1990s, Bernie Ecclestone led, with the help of Max Mosley, then president of the FIA, a charge to prevent a pan-European ban on sponsorship from the tobacco industry, something that would greatly affect the finances at that time. The matter turned into a British scandal after Ecclestone's salary was revealed along with the amount he had donated in the election that set Tony Blair as British Prime Minister. After all, Ecclestone knew that the tobacco ban would come at some point, but managed to delay it for a while.

But lobbying can serve other purposes as well. The weight of the F1 brand acting on behalf of the various harassments, such as those seen in Austria, can be prosecuted as a common crime and can range from fines to jail time. The countries through which Formula One passes throughout the year are very different, and it is very difficult to make certain comparisons between Saudi Arabia and Austria, for example, but skillful and continuous work will be of value. Not only that, but F1 is in a financial and distribution position to develop educational and human rights awareness work around the world. Be it by sponsoring educational measures of serious institutions from country to country or by creating its own to get involved with drivers who take their first steps in the sport.

Particularly, I am not one of those who believes that sport has to cure the world. Sport is a microcosm of the society in which it is inserted and is nothing more than a reflection. In more niche sports, the microcosm is less significant, but in a F1 that is experiencing a popularity boom, it represents a lot. In the midst of troubled societies, in a growing escalation of violence and power of the extreme right throughout the world, it is not strange that cases like the ones in Austria - and in Brazil last year - appear. The F1 audience did not create the aggression, but the aggression appears in it because the F1 audience is big enough to represent the society in which it is inserted.

Especially in a reality that has been extremely and historically focused on the male public as if it were the epitome of macho - fast cars, adrenaline on the limit, and playboy life in the spotlight - Formula 1 'hides' a macho culture. And if circumstances do the work of deepening even more the social tensions of a certain place, the audience is mostly male and largely attracted to the sport by the historical poetic license that 'boys will be boys', the different is everything that does not resemble it. It is women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and anyone non-white.

There is a political issue that is undeniable: in societies with escalating violence and severe social tensions, the way is paved for the reaction to what is different to be hurtful. This is in addition to the fandom mentality fermented by the Internet over the past two decades.

Fanaticism in support of athletes, organizations, and celebrities is, of course, not a new phenomenon. It has been there forever, and over the decades it has caused many problems. The point is that in the age of the Internet, fan communities have become much larger - there is no longer the boundary of distance or the size limitation of the groups that form. If the telephone allowed people in different parts of the world to talk, the WhatsApps of life allow these conversations to involve tens, hundreds or thousands of people. It is very easy to plunge into the small communities of devotion where you feel comfortable, and thus increasingly move away from the contradictory. This is the recipe for radicalization.

In the age of fandons, there are not only fans: there is the battle of good against evil. And evil is anyone who is on opposite sides. There is no interesting or even admirable character: there is a flawless genius. Perfection has become the rule for those who admire themselves. Then, what appears is a simple logical sequence: I like my pilot, so he is perfect > if he is perfect, it is not possible that he makes mistakes or that he has inherent flaws in his personality > if he is someone flawless and wonderful, then whoever tries to defeat him is in the service of evil > evil has to be defeated by any means possible.

The devotion to the Flawless One becomes explosive when paired with societies in dysfunction: taken over or battered by strong right-wing extremism, like Brazil and Austria, or by tensions and social convulsions of the most diverse kind. Sport is more victim than aggressor in the creation of this environment, but it can be a participant if it looks the other way and pretends not to see. This is what F1 is doing right now by acting in a small way. It is possible to act appropriately, however. Let it be time.