F1 Drivers Annoyed by Boss’s Ask to Clean Up Dirty Words

Formula One stars, including Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Sergio Pérez, and Yuki Tsunoda, are pushing back against the head of the sport’s governing body over comments that drivers need to cut the profanity.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem told Motorsport.com that the sport, which allows fans to tune in to driver and team audios during a race, has too much profanity, even though swear words are bleeped out. He said he’s already asked Formula One Management to limit the amount of cursing that makes it onto the airwaves, especially in consideration of younger audiences as well as officials who receive online hate after negative comments made on a broadcast.

“I mean, we have to differentiate between our sport—motorsport—and rap music,” Ben Sulayem said. “We’re not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not on that. That’s them and we are [us].”

Some drivers aren’t happy with Ben Sulayem’s comments, with several saying F1 could avoid the issue by not airing the explicit audio.

“A lot of people say a lot of bad things when they are full of adrenaline in other sports; it just doesn’t get picked up. Where here, probably also for entertainment purposes, things get sent out,” current leader Verstappen said. “I’m sure if you mic’d up in every other sport — in football, if you mic’d up every player, or basketball, whatever, they’re all swearing, I guess,” said Tsunoda, 12th in the rankings.

The up-close-and-personal access F1 gives its fans is part of why the sport has seen such global success. In particular, Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has contributed to F1’s explosion in popularity by placing athlete personalities at the forefront.

“I mean, they can just not play the radios, so it’s quite simple from their side,” said Norris, who is second behind Verstappen in the rankings. “We’re the guys in the heat of the moment, under stress, under pressure, fighting, having big crashes—it’s a lot easier for them to say than for us to do because we’re out there putting our hearts on the line trying to race people and we’re giving it our all.”

“I think if they want to control that they should just delete the radio—take away the radio and give us the privacy,” said Pérez, ranked eighth.

Hamilton, who said earlier this year that Ben Sulayem “never has” had his support, took issue with his boss’s contrast between drivers and rappers.

“With what he’s saying, I don’t like how he’s expressed it, saying that rappers is very stereotypical,” Hamilton said. “You think about most rappers are Black. That really kind of points it towards, when it says we’re not like them. So I think those are the wrong choice of words, there’s a racial element there.”

But unlike some of his competitors, Hamilton does agree the broadcasts need some “cleaning up a little bit.” He said he didn’t think about it as much when he was younger, but things have changed.

“It’s good to have some emotions. We’re not robots. And for me, the way I control it is because there’s like over 2,000 people that are working towards me having this position and being where I am,” Hamilton said. “I’ve got a lot of followers of all ages. It’s not about me. And even though I’m having this experience on-track, what I do and what I say affects all those people who are sacrificing time with their families, who are giving absolutely everything to have this privileged position and opportunity. I think it’s just understanding that, and putting the aggression somewhere else.”