Sky Sports F1 reporter Ted Kravitz was forced to apologise after dropping the F-bomb during their live broadcast of the Singapore Grand Prix.
The incident occurred during their coverage of the first practice session at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Friday morning.
Kravitz, one of the most experienced and well-known Formula One pundits in the world, was down by the Ferrari garage commenting on the design of their car.
But during his analysis, the pit-lane reporter stumbled over his words before muttering: ‘Oh, f***ing hell. Sorry, let’s do that again.’
The broadcast hastily cut back to main presenter Simon Lazenby who later apologised for the swearing when handing the coverage back to Kravitz.
‘Apologies for any bad language you may have heard a little bit earlier, but let’s go back to the pit lane and to Ted for take two.’
It was then that Kravitz explained that an outtake had accidentally been aired instead of the final pre-recorded segment.
‘Simon, can I just add to that, big apologies from my side.
‘Just to let you know, we’re live now – when the cars come out for the presentation, which I recorded earlier, I seek perfection but sometimes I don’t get it.
‘And if I mess up a first take and them I’m frustrated with myself, sometimes a naughty word comes out.
‘Obviously, that was never meant to be played – that’s our mistake and we’re owning that. I apologise that that take, which was not meant to be played, got played out.
‘This happens in television sometimes, so apologies for that. We’ll seek to do better next time.’
This incident occurred just a day after FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem called for F1 drivers to cut back on swearing while racing and for broadcasters to stop showing any team radio messages that contain foul language.
This request hasn’t gone down too well with drivers, especially Max Verstappen and the championship leader has now been summoned to the stewards for dropping the F-bomb during Thursday’s press conference.
Lewis Hamilton understood where Ben Sulayem was coming from but took exception after he likened swearing drivers to ‘rappers’.
The president said: ‘We have to differentiate between our sport and rap music. We’re not rappers.
‘They use the F-word how many times per minute? Imagine you are sitting with your children and watching the race and someone is saying all this dirty language.’
‘I don’t like how he has expressed it. Saying “rappers”, is very stereotypical,’ Hamilton said.
‘If you think about it, most rappers are black, so, it says “we are not like them”. So I think those are the wrong choice of words and there is a racial element there.’
.
.