“We have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music,” said Ben Sulayem, a former rally driver, in an interview with the trade magazine “Autosport”.
“We are not rappers. They say the F-word how many times a minute? We are not part of that,” explained the FIA boss. The world association is concerned about the amount of insults coming from the drivers’ cockpits. In the Formula 1 TV signal, curses are overlaid with a beep via radio.
“And now with technology, everything is broadcast live and everything is recorded. Ultimately, we need to look into this to see if we can reduce what is being said publicly,” Ben Sulayem continued. “Imagine you are sitting in front of the TV with your children watching the race and then someone says all these dirty words.”
Verstappen: “You’ll still curse”
World champion Max Verstappen has little to say about the world governing body’s approach. “I think people will still swear. If it’s not in this room, then maybe somewhere else. Everyone swears. Some people a bit more than others,” said the Red Bull driver from the Netherlands, who caused a stir this season with a tirade of abuse at the race in Hungary in July. “In other sports, many people also say bad things when they’re full of adrenaline, but they don’t have a microphone with them.”
Verstappen has long been bothered by the fact that, in his opinion, too much is broadcast in Formula 1. “If you don’t broadcast it, nobody will know, only the team. That’s how you deal with such things internally,” said Verstappen on the sidelines of the Singapore Grand Prix. “Even if a five or six-year-old is watching, they will swear at some point anyway. Even if their parents don’t want them to or don’t allow them. When they grow up, they will run around with their friends and swear. So that won’t change anything.”
Record champion Lewis Hamilton, who is not known for his outbursts of anger, was particularly offended by the FIA boss’s choice of words. “Most rappers are black,” stressed the Englishman, who likes to produce music himself and is friends with some of the big names in the scene. “I think it was the wrong choice of words. There is a racist element to it.” It is also good for drivers to have emotions. “We are not robots.”
