F1 Is at War With Its Drivers Over Swearing: ‘Our Members Are Adults’

Formula One boss Mohammed Ben Sulayem really wants his drivers to stop swearing. The drivers want him to move on. In a statement Thursday, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association called out Ben Sulayem and said the fines for cursing were “not appropriate.”

The drivers also want transparency for where their money goes when they’re fined. (In the NFL and NBA, for example, fine dollars go to charity.)

“Our members are adults,” the statement said. Ben Sulayem has been fixated on the drivers’ language for months, frustrating drivers by saying they shouldn’t swear because they’re “not rappers.”

“We urge the FIA President to also consider his own tone and language when talking to our member drivers, or indeed about them, in a public forum or otherwise. … [T]hey do not need to be given instructions via the media, about matters as trivial as the wearing of jewellery and underpants,” the statement said, referring to a 2022 jewelry ban specifically meant to target Lewis Hamilton.

The statement comes a week after Charles Leclerc was fined €10,000, or close to $11,000, for dropping an f-bomb when he described a near crash in a press conference. And in September, Max Verstappen was ordered to do community service for calling his car “fucked.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to join Max,” Leclerc said immediately after saying the swear word.

F1 is somewhat different from other sports because drivers are all mic’d up live, allowing fans to catch reactions that include occasional expletives. Drivers insist they’re “not robots,” and say the FIA can simply not air the live audio if they’re concerned about heat-of-the-moment swearing.

Thursday’s message was signed by the directors and chairman of the GPDA, which includes current driver George Russell, formerly retired driver Sebastian Vettel, and former driver Alex Wurz, who is the chairman. In their statement, the group said there’s a difference between swearing at someone and doing it casually, “such as you might use to describe bad weather, or indeed an inanimate object such as a Formula 1 car, or a driving situation.”

The drivers ended their statement by saying they want to work together with “all the stakeholders” including Ben Sulayem to improve the sport. “We are playing our part,” the message concluded.

The FIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.