Can F1 drivers talk to each other during a race?

During an F1 race session, drivers are often heard speaking with their team. They can press a button on their steering wheel and directly talk to their respective pit wall through the radio. However, these radio messages are only made between a driver and his team. Direct communication is not possible between F1 drivers, whether they are teammates or rivals from different teams.

Radio messages during an F1 session are crucial. Drivers communicate important information about their car, track, and other drivers that could help them stay ahead in the Grand Prix. Each driver on the grid has a respective race engineer with whom they mainly communicate.

The only way for drivers to communicate with each other during a race session is when they are teammates. They can speak with their respective race engineer and tell them to convey a message to their teammate. The racing engineer for this driver will then converse with the race engineer for the other driver, who will then speak with their driver. This is the only line of connection that is possible between F1 drivers.

While drivers cannot hear each other on the radio, the teams have access to every team radio up and down the paddock. This occasionally helps teams to pick up some useful information from other drivers that could be beneficial for them.

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F1 urges teams to instruct their drivers to stop swearing on team radios

Following Max Verstappen's offensive remarks on the team radio at the 2024 F1 Hungarian GP, it has been reported that team managers were urged to advise their drivers to use more tactful language. Stefano Domenicali, the CEO of the sport, discussed the circumstances during a recent F1 commission meeting on Tuesday (July 23).

According to The Times, the topic of radio profanity was discussed in the commission meeting. Domenicali advised all the teams to exercise greater caution when communicating over the radio because some of these back-and-forths may be aired to a global audience.

He also asked team bosses to convey the message to their drivers, so that they are more cautious of their language even during high-energy on-track moments.

Currently, drivers who use foul language face no significant fines or penalties—that is unless the language is a racial slur. RB driver Yuki Tsunoda was recently fined €40,000 for using the racial epithet "re****" at the Austrian GP.

Meanwhile, Max Verstappen addressed his use of strong language and stated that if someone does not like his team radios, they can simply turn the volume down and not listen to them.

“You know people that don’t like my language, then don’t listen in, turn the volume down, you know. I’m very driven to success, I think I’ve proven that already, I always want to optimise stuff, now people can argue that he might not be so vocal on the radio but that’s their opinion,” Verstappen told the media ahead of the Belgian GP.