Brown backs Verstappen after controversial FIA decision

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has asserted it is up to the F1 television production to filter out remarks containing swear words rather than the drivers to tone down their language.

Last year, Max Verstappen was handed a community service obligation for swearing during an official FIA press conference.

The penalty came shortly after FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem outlined he wanted to see drivers eliminate swearing from their vocabulary altogether.

A public letter from the Grand Prix Drivers' Association to Ben Sulayem last year outlined the difference between swearing to insult others and as part of a casual conversation.

Speaking on the James Allen on F1 podcast, Brown highlighted he does not see the need for swearing in a press conference.

“The swearing I agree with in certain circumstances, meaning in a press conference where everything is quite chilled out, there's no emotion involved, there's no reason to swear,” he said.

“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.”

Brown wants to see F1 driver emotion

However, Brown acknowledged in the middle of on-track battles, it is an impossible task for drivers to contain their emotions.

Instead, he said the TV production can choose not to broadcast sentences that contain profanities - which already are bleeped out.

“I think 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,” Brown added.

“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.

“So if we don't like that or feel it's too much or too inappropriate, then just don't broadcast it.

“I think showing the emotion and the passion and the intensity is good. 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.”