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Ben Sulayem hints at team radio shut down

NEWS STORY
12/02/2025

Determined to eliminate bad language, FIA president, Mohammed ben Sulayem has warned that team radios could be shut off.

As Max Noble points out in his latest excellent article, Invasion of the Money Snatchers, there is much wrong with F1 and the direction in which it is heading. However, ask the majority of fans - new and old-time purists - and few would claim that swearing is high on the list.

However, as he increasingly exerts his power over the sport, the FIA president is determined to drive it out.

Having uttered naughty words, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were immediately penalised, and as the Grand Prix Drivers' Association seemingly bristles in anticipation of a showdown, Ben Sulayem is ramping up the odds.

Speaking at an FIA officials summit at Jarama, Ben Sulayem warned that in his determination to eradicate bad language - or at least the public being subjected to it - he is prepared to shut down team radio broadcasts.

"Do we go on and then shut down the radios of live communications? Maybe," he said, in a video published by SoyMotor. "Do we delay it? Maybe," he added.

"There's a lot of things we will work on with our promoters. We are still the owners of the championship."

While McLaren boss, Zak Brown, believes the drivers should not swear during the official press conferences, he appreciates that once in the car and the visor is down emotions will take over.

In that case he feels the broadcasters should step in.

"The swearing I agree with in certain circumstances," he tells James Allen in his latest podcast. "In a press conference where everything is quite chilled out, there's no emotion involved, there's no reason to swear.

"You don't see Michael Jordan in the NBA, I know I'm dating myself because he's not played for a while, but you don't see athletes or managers in press conferences just dropping F-bombs. I think that's inappropriate and we should set a good example.

"(However, when the helmet is on, you're in the heat of the battle, I would imagine on a football pitch or a baseball field, there's a lot of stuff that we just don't hear because they're not mic'd up," he continued.

"We do have the power to hit the delay button or delete on the broadcast. You actually can control whether it makes it onto TV or not by just hitting the delete button.

"I think showing the emotion and the passion and the intensity is good," he admitted. "A little bit of it is okay, but we've got the power in the production studio to hit the pause button. So I think that's how you solve that. It would be unrealistic to say you can't swear when the helmet is on."

On Sunday, F1 released the latest sneak preview of the F1 movie - F1 - which hits theatres in the summer.

Unless the movie is as woke as some of the crap dished up in recent years - all of which has led to a marked fall in the number of cinema goers and financial disaster for the studios - as plots and characters are mis-shaped out of all genuine recognition in order to fit the agenda, the F1 movie will feature lots of emotion, anger and frustration... and as a result... swearing.

If it doesn't then the movie will be as fake and as 'new Hollywood' as we fear, if not are we to assume Brad Pitt will be penalised or Ben Sulayem will have theatres bleep out the offending words.

Meanwhile, following the GPDA's calls for transparency over where the money raised from fines actually goes, we hear that there is no truth in the rumour that George Russell ghas called on Elon Musk and his DOGE team.

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READERS COMMENTS

 

1. Posted by Italian Job, 13/02/2025 22:58

"@KKK neither a race suspension nor a fine - concentrate their minds by making them go somewhere inconvenient for three days (#1 to get there, #2 to pay a penalty such as good deeds all day, #3 to get home), nowhere convenient to the upcoming dates on the F1 calendar. Three days not being able to work the simulator or do PR appearances should have an effect. "

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2. Posted by ian_w, 13/02/2025 12:31

"You have no idea how many times I have had to rewind the PVR after hearing yet another apology from Crofty or Lazyboy regarding having heard any innapropriate language, just so I can figure out what the f..k they are referring to!

I however am located in Canada, so we just tend to tune out a lot of nearby screaming! Audiences listening across the pond may have different sensitivities. Also, our favorite swear words really are French and generally chuch related! Sacré bleu!

What does Ofcom has tp say on the mattter? Is amyone saying anything to Ofcom?"

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3. Posted by BillH, 12/02/2025 8:21

"In an odd kind of way, the drivers and teams (some anyway) are responsible for this crackdown as they were the ones to "take a knee", and have rainbows painted on their cars and pronounce at every opportunity that "we race as one", which I took to insinuate that as a viewer of F1 I was somehow racist.
What I mean is that they went down this holier than thou path of rightousness (wokeness?) and now that they are being asked to tone down their language are throwing their toys out of the pram.
For what it's worth, which isn't much, I think just bleeping out the bad language will be fine as we can still hear the emotion in the driver's voice and that is part of the human side of racing that draws many to the sport."

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4. Posted by Blitsharts, 11/02/2025 11:02

"Haha - He said "woke"!"

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5. Posted by ffracer, 11/02/2025 9:05

"Totally agree with Zak Brown on this, a delayed sterilized radio feed is the way forward. The fans can still hear the intensity of racing with a delete/bleep button. As in all other sports.


@KKK: As for meting out race suspensions/fines for cussing drivers, no fu@&!@& way lol! We'll never see Max or Charles."

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6. Posted by ausieausieausie, 11/02/2025 6:05

"radio should be banned all together unless there is a dangerous situation, the drivers are supposed to be able to figure out the best way to race because that's what they are there for!!!!!!!!"

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7. Posted by kenji, 11/02/2025 5:05

"Does this latest move cover 'foul' language in all languages..or just English? How about 'copulate off' as another alternative or as the Germans would translate that to 'off you copulate'. Sounds better.This is quite fun and given enough time could also be quite entertaining when anal-ysing the intended meaning. Just to note, I haven't seen any FIA objection to the term 'Roger that' when acknowledging a comm."

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8. Posted by Superbird70, 11/02/2025 3:29

"@Max Noble- Semper ubi sub ubi!!"

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9. Posted by Max Noble, 11/02/2025 0:55

"@stackvideo - LoL classic! Having been cut off at the apex… “Intercourse that move!” Wonderful television…

Or we go all classical on MBS and revert to Latin… more properly becoming “Coitus that move!” Now doesn’t that sound family friendly?

The FIA could mandate that all team radio HAS to be in Latin. Problem solved (QED…). Everyone’s a winner.


"

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10. Posted by stackvideo, 10/02/2025 21:49

"Just change it to "intercourse"

"

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11. Posted by dejan, 10/02/2025 20:14

"On the US feed of the Sky broadcast the radio is already delayed - do they still have a problem with this?

For users that use the direct car feeds then a disclaimer will fix it"

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12. Posted by moomoo, 10/02/2025 18:16

"Most sense I've ever heard from him. Turn the f'n broadcast off."

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13. Posted by Superbird70, 10/02/2025 18:02

"Just delay the entire race broadcast by 30 minutes or so. That way it can be sanitised, and all the race control/stewards penalties can be dealt with before a 'final' result is posted."

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14. Posted by KKK, 10/02/2025 16:59

"The solution is simple, don't fine the drivers, just give them a race suspension and the teams can't put in a spare driver. That way it's the team that suffers more and then perhaps they will put in a 19 second delay that goes out on air which allows the team to bleep the swearing out. Other than that tell the FIA to f**k off..."

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15. Posted by Wokingchap, 10/02/2025 12:28

"Ben wanting to show his power yet again when a very simple solution...beeping out swearing...costs almost nothing. So i tend to agree with Zak."

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