No race issue in this sport, insists F1 chief

NEW Formula One supremo Stefano Domenicali has denied that the sport has a racism problem. The former Ferrari team principal, who has taken over from Chase Carey as F1 chief executive, is a popular figure and revealed he is planning talks with drivers when he travels to Bahrain for pre-season testing. However, following a year when seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton called for the sport to move away from its white-centric base to embrace different cultures, Domenicali moved to play down suggestions there is a pressing problem with race relations. ‘I don’t perceive that,’ he said. ‘At least I don’t see that from personal experience; in truth, the other way round. ‘When I joined Ferrari in 1991, it was 99.9 per cent Italian. Then we were joined by people from the UK, France, Japan, Switzerland, Germany — changing in terms of culture and colour. ‘Down on a knee, knees up — these things have different meanings depending on where you are in the world. I want to discuss the knee with the drivers. We do not want to be focused on a single gesture.’ The new season, starting on March 28, sees Formula One go to Saudi Arabia — a country with an abysmal human rights record — at the end of November, but the new supremo has no concerns. ‘Zero embarrassment,’ said Domenicali. ‘Formula One has a role to play in advancing our values in different places. We are discussing these kinds of things with the Saudis.’ Domenicali also revealed that Silverstone has been chosen to pioneer a revolutionary new sprint race at this year’s British Grand Prix. The circuit is one of three venues that will trial the half-hour blast, on Saturday, July 17, which will decide grid positions for the race on Sunday.