Ben Sulayem said ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix that he is trying to make changes, so there is less bad language broadcast by FOM (Formula One Management), who have control over the world feed for all F1 sessions.
The FIA President told Autosport: “I mean, we have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music.
“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].”
Hamilton said he understood Ben Sulayem’s concerns over excessive swearing but there was a “racial element” to the FIA president’s reference to rap music.
“With what he said, I don’t like how he expressed it,” Hamilton said. “Saying rappers is very stereotypical as most rappers are black.
“It really kind of points towards ‘we are not like them’, so I think those were the wrong choice of words and there’s a racial element there.
“I agree things need clearing up a bit but it is also good to have some emotion as we are not robots.”
Sky Sports has approached the FIA for comment on Hamilton’s remarks.
Team radio is an integral part of modern-day F1 coverage, providing viewers insight through being able to hear the team and driver discussing strategies, plus immediate reaction to incidents and race situations.
Hamilton, who rarely uses expletives over team radio, says he considers the children watching races when choosing his language.
“On one side, when I was 22, I didn’t think of it as much,” the seven-time world champion said. “It was more your emotions just firing and you just saying whatever comes to mind, forgetting how many people are listening in, the kids that are listening, all those different things.
“So I agree in the sense that you listen to some of the other drivers and they just haven’t got it yet and at some stage, they probably will.
“I’m sure, if you had penalties for it, people will stop it. I don’t know whether that’s something which is needed but I definitely think there is too much of it.”
