Lewis Hamilton has accused FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem of making a stereotypical remark that has a racial element after revealing he intends to stop the broadcast of swearing during Formula 1 races by hitting drivers with penalties, Afrosport reports.
Swear words are bleeped out during live broadcasts of F1 events by a vetting process, causing a delay in the transmission of conversations between team and driver.
Ben Sulayem in a interview with motorsport.com stated that F1 was not rap music where the ‘F word’ is used a lot and is commonly heard by drivers during radio communication with their team on race weekends.
“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 said.
“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?”
Hamilton hit back at Ben Sulayem’s reference to rappers who are mostly black.
The Mercedes driver however understood the FIA president’s stance of children watching races but insisted that the they would eventually start swearing once they get older.
“Saying ‘rappers’ is very stereotypical. If you think about it, most rappers are black,” he said as per BBC Sport.
“So when it says: ‘We are not like them’, those are the wrong choice of words. There is a racial element there.
“You forget that there are kids that are listening. So I agree in that sense. If you listen to some of the younger drivers, they’ve not got it yet and at some stage they possibly will.”
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Hamilton is currently participating at the Singapore Grand Prix where he finished Friday’s first and second practice session 12th and 11th respectively.
