Lewis Hamilton has criticized FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s statement comparing F1 drivers to “rappers.” The latter had suggested that F1 drivers should not be using swear words while communicating with their teams during races.
The FIA President said he feels that drivers should maintain a proper code of conduct because of the publicity of the sport. Talking about the frequent expletives they use while talking with teams on live radio, he stated that the sport needs to be different from “rap music.”
“We have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music,” he told Motorsport.com. “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].”
Lewis Hamilton claimed that it was stereotypical to point out “rappers.”
“I don’t like how he expressed it,” Lewis Hamilton said. “Saying rappers is very stereotypical and if you think about it, most rappers are black and that really kind of points it towards, when it says: ‘We are not like them’. So I think those are the wrong choice of words. There is a racial element there.”
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