Hamilton accuses FIA president of ‘racial element’ over swearing issue
Lewis Hamilton has accused comments made by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem about clamping down on swearing by F1 drivers as having “a racial element”.
Ben Sulayem spoke about the need for drivers to act more responsibly over team radio and not swear as much, insisting that drivers were “not rappers”.
Three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen criticised the approach, believing FOM could simply not choose to broadcast radio messages with swearing included.
When asked for his input, Hamilton agreed with Ben Sulayem’s approach of trying to clamp down on the use of swearing, but felt there was a “racial element” to his choice of words.
“There are two segments to that because I’ve only heard of that today,” Hamilton explained to media including RacingNews365 when Ben Sulayem’s comments were put to him.
“On one side, when I was 22, I didn’t think of it as much and it was more your emotions are just firing and you’re just saying whatever comes to mind, not forgetting how many people and kids are listening.
“I agree in that sense that you listen to some of the younger drivers, and they’ve not got it yet, and at some stage, they probably will.
“I’m sure if you say there are penalties for it, people will stop. I don’t know whether that is needed, but I definitely think there is a little bit too much [swearing].”
But then Hamilton added: “With what he is saying, I don’t like how he expressed it. Saying it was rappers was very stereotypical, and if you think most rappers are black, it really points it towards, ‘We’re not like them’.
“So I think those were the wrong choice of words, and there is a racial element there, but as I said, I agree with cleaning it up a little bit.”
Channeling the anger
Hamilton went onto add that showing emotion was not bad, but as the figurehead of the Mercedes team, felt a responsibility to channel his anger at on-track incidents away from the public eye.
“It is also good to have some emotion, it is very, very hard and we’re not robots,” he said.
“For me, the way I control it is that I have over 2000 people who are working towards me doing this and having this position and being where I am with a lot of followers of all ages.
“But it is not about me, even though I have this experience on track, what I do and what I say affects all those people sacrificing time with their families.
“[They are] giving absolutely everything for me to have this privileged position and opportunity, so it is understanding that and putting that aggression somewhere else.”
