FIA Withdraws Jonathan McEvoy's Accreditation for Rest of 2026 Over Leclerc Column

One headline has cost a veteran reporter his seat in the paddock. The FIA has withdrawn the media accreditation of Daily Mail journalist Jonathan McEvoy for the rest of the 2026 Formula 1 season, after his November 4 column on Charles Leclerc — published after the Mexican Grand Prix — put an explicit insult about the Ferrari driver in its headline.

McEvoy has covered Formula 1 for more than two decades. The column criticized Leclerc's part in an opening-lap battle with his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton in Mexico City, and the headline called Leclerc a “sneaky little b*****d.” McEvoy has since described the phrase as lighthearted and joshing. The FIA didn't read it that way.

The decision landed Thursday, November 12, in a letter from FIA general manager Alberto Villarreal. “The FIA considers that your article falls short of the standards of professionalism expected of media representatives accredited to cover the FIA Formula 1 World Championship,” the letter read, withdrawing the accreditation for the remainder of the season with immediate effect.

In its statement, the governing body pointed to its 2026 championship guidelines: accreditation is granted at the FIA's sole discretion and can be revoked at any time, with the highest standards of fairness expected as a minimum requirement. It also drew one careful line — the decision relates solely to McEvoy, and the Daily Mail can nominate an alternative representative for the remaining races.

The practical cost is the whole run-in. McEvoy will miss the Las Vegas Grand Prix next weekend, the Qatar Grand Prix at Lusail on November 27–29 and the season finale in Abu Dhabi on December 4–6 — the three races that settle second place in the drivers' championship behind Kimi Antonelli. On his account of the conversation with Villarreal, he expects the accreditation back at the start of the 2027 season.

The Daily Mail is fighting it. Chris Dean, the paper's head of sport, condemned the decision in a statement and asked the FIA to reinstate McEvoy immediately, saying the paper assumes he will be accredited again in 2027 because the ban covers only the rest of this year.

McEvoy, for his part, hasn't gone quietly. In a follow-up column he accused Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur of reporting him to the FIA and aimed fresh insults at the Ferrari boss. Sources close to Ferrari insist neither the team nor Vasseur played any part in the decision, which they say the FIA took independently — and the notification, on McEvoy's own account, came from the FIA's director general, not from Maranello.

However the argument ends, the precedent is now on the record: an opinion column — not a factual dispute, not a paddock incident — was enough for the governing body to pull a two-decade correspondent's pass for the rest of a season. Every writer filing from Las Vegas next week will know exactly where the line was drawn, because one of their number won't be there.

Accreditation is the whole job for a traveling correspondent. The pass is what gets a writer into the paddock, the media center and the press conferences where the season's stories actually surface, and it's issued per person rather than per publication — which is why the FIA's carve-out for the Daily Mail matters: the paper can send someone else to Las Vegas, Lusail and Abu Dhabi, but McEvoy himself is done for the year.

The letter's paper trail ran through the sport's media quickly. The Athletic's Dan Sheldon reported the wording of Villarreal's letter, including the line that the FIA was exercising its discretion under the 2026 accreditation guidelines to withdraw the pass “for the remainder of the 2026 season, with immediate effect.” McEvoy revealed the ban himself in a follow-up column on Thursday, the same day the FIA informed him — and used the column to keep arguing his case in public.

The reaction split along a familiar line within hours. The FIA's position is procedural — a discretionary credential, a published standard, a temporary withdrawal that leaves the publication itself untouched. The Daily Mail's position is editorial: an opinion column, clearly an opinion, punished by the body the columnist covers. Both statements are now public, and neither side has moved — the FIA hasn't reinstated him, and the paper hasn't withdrawn a word of the column.