Foul language-FIA case: Williams team boss James Vowles stands as ally of Federation. James Vowles has aligned himself as an ally of the FIA.

James Vowles has aligned himself as an ally of the FIA: recently, the Williams team principal expressed his sincere opinions on the storm that sees drivers and the FIA as “enemies”: “I still trust the FIA,” James Vowles said to the media, including PlanetF1.com. “What I look at most is: do we have a set of regulations that are being checked according to the right standards? Do we have a set of regulations for 2026 that are suitable for what we’re producing? And the answer to all that is fundamentally yes. We’re addressing some critical points regarding whether drivers should or shouldn’t speak that way. Now, my perspective on this is pretty clear; when you’re in the car under pressure, I think it’s normal to expect that any human being would respond that way, because you’re putting your life at risk to the extreme.”

“Aside from that, I also think we have a responsibility to the world, and I hope I’m not caught out by my own words, but I think you’re looking at a very small element. I look at the FIA as a whole. We have a set of regulations that I believe in and trust,” he concluded.

In defense of Mohammed Ben Sulayem

The English team principal thus wanted to support not only the entire Federation but especially the one at its helm, Mohammed Ben Sulayem. The FIA President recently took up the issue of foul language in a conference, where he stated: “We need to make a distinction between our sport, motorsport, and rap music,” said the 63-year-old Emirati. “We are not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not like that. Those are them, and we are [us].” Lewis Hamilton was particularly outspoken against these expressions among the drivers, displeased by the discriminatory language with which Sulayem used the term “rapper”: “I don’t like the way he expressed himself. Saying ‘rapper’ is very stereotypical, and if you think about it, most rappers are black. He made it seem like we’re not like them; I think wrong words were used, there’s a racial element in his speech,” he concluded.