The furious race to take the F-word out of F1

So you drop an F-bomb.

The problem is that moment of frustration isn’t confined to the inside of your helmet—anything drivers say is relayed back to their team over a radio. And in an age of wall-to-wall F1 race coverage, those radio communications are frequently broadcast straight to a television audience of tens of millions.

Which is why motorsport’s world governing body this week asked drivers to pump the brakes on running their mouths. And on Thursday in Singapore, the world’s best drivers briefly complied—but only to reply politely that they intend to keep on cursing, thank you very much.

“What are we, 5-year-olds?" defending world champion Max Verstappen said. “People say a lot of bad things when they’re full of adrenaline in other sports. It just doesn’t get picked up."

Verstappen, whose Dutch directness is famous in F1 circles, has never been one to censor himself. In fact, mere minutes before he was asked about the new recommendation, he had been complaining about the state of his car at this month’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. “As soon as I went to qualifying," Verstappen said, “I knew the car was f—ed."

The debate kicked off when Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, said in an interview that he had enough of drivers letting loose over the radio, even though it’s usually bleeped out on the television broadcasts.

“We have to differentiate between our sport—motor sport—and rap music," Ben Sulayem told the Autosport website. “We’re not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We aren’t on that."

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was one of the few drivers who could see his point about language, especially regarding younger fans of the sport. His issue concerned Ben Sulayem’s comparison to rappers, which Hamilton felt was racially tinged.

For the rest of the field, the idea of asking drivers to stop talking like sailors seemed about as absurd as asking them to race without wheels.

“For us to control our words when we are driving 300 kilometers per hour between the walls of some street track, it’s tricky," Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc said. “We are humans after all."

The irony is that these candid moments are precisely what F1’s modern success has been built on. Until Liberty Media acquired Formula One in 2017, most radio communications between drivers and their teams were private. Only through F1’s widespread efforts to pull back the curtain and humanize the 20 men in the cockpits did that begin to change. There were more cameras in garages, a fly-on-the-wall Netflix series, and, of course, more open radio channels.

“Here, probably also for entertainment purposes, things get sent out and that’s where people pick up on it," Verstappen said. “If you don’t broadcast it, no one will know…In general, it seems that people are a bit more sensitive to stuff."

The conversation may continue, but drivers insist that this matter isn’t up for debate. Cutting out cursing simply isn’t an option—especially not since it might actually serve a useful purpose in the heat of a race. McLaren’s Lando Norris explained that his occasional outbursts aren’t always momentary fits of passion. There are instances when the most reliable way for him to hammer home the gravity of his point is to reach for a trusty F-bomb.

“Sometimes," he added, “it has a bigger impact than saying, ‘I’m not very happy.’"

Write to Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com