FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has called out F1 drivers for the amount of swearing that takes place during races on the team radio, insisting that ‘we’re not rappers’.
Under the current system, the official F1 global broadcast has access to all 20 team radios during the race and chooses to broadcast snippets of audio from drivers and race engineers from key exchanges to add to the narrative of the race.
Ben Sulayem, however, is unhappy with the language used by some of the drivers during the heat of a battle. “I mean, we have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music,” he told Motorsport.com. “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].”
He went on to add: “I know, I was a driver. In the heat of the moment, when you think you are upset because another driver came to you and pushed you…When I used to drive in the dus, I would get upset.
“But also, we have to be careful with our conduct. We need to be responsible people. And now with the technology, everything is going live and everything is going to be recorded. At the end of the day, we have to study that to see: do we minimise what is being said publicly?
“Because imagine you are sitting with your children and watching the race and then someone is saying all of this dirty language. I mean, what would your children or grandchildren say? What would you teach them if that is your sport?”
The discourse regarding behaviour on the radio was reignited after Max Verstappen was criticised for his conduct during the Hungarian Grand Prix. After sinking through the field, the reigning champion repeatedly criticised his team’s strategy in a sweary rant.
However, when challenged on his harsh comments to the Red Bull strategists and manner of interaction with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen was not in the mood to apologise and had no regrets about his actions.
“I don’t think we need to apologise,” he told Sky Sports F1 in Budapest. “I just think we need to do a better job. I don’t know why people think you cannot be vocal on a radio. This is a sport. If some people don’t like that then stay home.”
Ben Sulayem is now considering limiting radio snippets on the FOM broadcast. “We can and we are,” he explained. “We are the ones who actually approved more talk [on the broadcast]. But we have rules, and the rules are there for the benefit of the sport and the rules are there to be policed and to be respected also.”
