Motorsport’s Fastest Star: I’ll Quit If I Can’t Drop F-Bombs

The motorsport Formula 1 has been plunged into controversy over profanity and race, with its biggest star flirting with quitting if he is not allowed to swear.

Max Verstappen, the three-time F1 world champion, is locked in a tense stand-off with its governing body after he dropped an F-bomb when he was asked about the lackluster performance of his Red Bull car after coming in fifth in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Now the profanity has set off a multi-car crash inside the high-octane—and high-value—sport, with one of its top executives facing accusations of racism for comparing Verstappen’s swearing to “rappers" saying the F-word.

The Dutch Verstappen, 26, has become popular worldwide not only for 61 race wins at top speeds of 230 mph but also for his blazing ego and blunt talk, which was on display in Netflix’s hit series Drive to Survive.

During a press conference ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix last Thursday when he was asked about his car’s frustrating performance in Baku, he replied, “F---ed.”

When a moderator scolded him about bad language, Verstappen said, “I couldn’t even say the F-word, I mean it’s not even that bad right? I mean the car was not working, the car is effed and then, excuse me for the language. Come on, what are we? Five-year-olds? Six-year-olds? Even if a 5-year-old or 6-year-old is watching, they will eventually swear anyway even if their parents won’t or they will not allow it.”

Within 24 hours, the FIA, F1’s governing body, reprimanded Verstappen and ordered him to “accomplish some work of public interest” as punishment, prompting Verstappen to call the disciplinary measure “ridiculous” and “silly” and immediately drop hints about quitting.

“For sure, these kind of things definitely decide my future as well,” Verstappen said, according to Racer. “You know, when you can’t be yourself, or you have to deal with these kind of silly things. I think now I’m at the stage of my career that you don’t want to be dealing with this all the time. It’s really tiring.”

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the Emirati president of FIA—who has taken a hard line against foul language, especially on team radios used to communicate during races and transmitted on live TV—only poured gasoline on the fire.

Ben Sulayem told Motorsport, “We're not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? That’s them and we are [us].”

His intervention caused Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time F1 world champion, who is Black, to lash out about Ben Sulayem's comment.

“Saying ‘rappers’ is very stereotypical,” Hamilton said, according to The Guardian. “If you think about it, most rappers are Black, so it says: ‘We are not like them.’ Those are the wrong choice of words and there is a racial element there.”

The profanity car wreck comes just as F1 aggressively tries to expand into the U.S., fueled by the success of the Netflix series.

The next Grand Prix on the calendar is in Austin, Texas, at the Circuit of the Americas, between Oct. 18 and 20.