TAKE A KNEE OR YOU ARE RACIST Gazza
Hamilton’s shock outburst to fellow Grand Prix drivers
LEWIS HAMILTON believes his fellow drivers are ‘complicit’ in racism if they do not take the knee before today’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Some drivers resent being pressured by Hamilton into doing so, with the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA) still considering their plan of action last night.
Hamilton’s accusation came as Formula One returns after Covid-19 against the backdrop of George Floyd’s killing by a white policeman in Minneapolis.
The six-time world champion, who qualified second behind Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, has taken up the fight for black rights in recent weeks and is contemplating how to make his own public statement as he lines up for the national anthem this afternoon.
Revealing what he told a meeting of the GPDA on Friday night, Hamilton said: ‘I thanked those that have said something on their social media platforms because they have a great voice.
‘I encouraged those who haven’t to say something. I told them silence is complicit.’
Referring to the differences of opinion, he said: ‘We know there is an issue (with racism in the sport), so we don’t need an experience like tomorrow to prove that.’
LEWIS HAMILTON cut an isolated figure as he fidgeted on his tinsel pulpit after being pipped to pole position for today’s Austrian Grand Prix.
The fact he was beaten into second place by his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas was greeted with a degree of delight from garage to garage. Many F1 insiders here have heard enough of the six-time world’s champion’s self-righteous preaching.
The final insult, as many saw it, came in his post-qualifying assertion that he considered his fellow drivers to be racists unless they proved that they aren’t.
‘Silence is complicity,’ he reported of his own comments to a meeting of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association on Friday night, at which the issue of how to demonstrate against the killing of George Floyd and the waves it caused, on Formula One’s return after a seven-month lull.
He talks of ending division, while in fact he breeds it. Yes, all the grid’s cast will wear ‘End Racism’ T-shirts as they line-up for the Austrian national anthem, but a number of the drivers are privately unhappy to be dragooned into taking a knee at Hamilton’s heavy-handed insistence.
Several were taking last night to think over whether they fall in line, conflicted between a desire to protest at racism on one hand and freedom of self-expression on the other. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz said: ‘Not everyone has decided what to do. You will see tomorrow.’
The chief accusation against Hamilton is one of hypocrisy on several fronts. He is the eco-warrior who, on Thursday, chided anyone wearing a disposable mask on the basis they end up on the ocean floor. But how did this environmentalist arrive in Austria? By a needless private charter flight from Monaco.
He could have travelled with his team from the United Kingdom — where he was based after testing at Silverstone on June 10 — but no, he flew to his tax haven home for a few days then made his own way here.
The journey formed part of his extravagant carbon footprint throughout lockdown that took him from Australia, where the intended opening race was called off in mid-March, to Bali, to America, then to Britain and Monaco.
Fine, it is easier to get long distances by plane than by foot. It is just a problem when you virtuesignal your commitment to saving the planet.
And where is Hamilton staying while in Austria? In a motorhome driven here as it polluted the roads, just as the V6 engine of his work car
will do through 71 strictly pointless laps today.
A fortnight ago, he complained about racism in the sport — and this should not be belittled if that is what he feels, though it is not obviously so — but did he not stop to think how he got to the top of the tree?
He was given a massive leg-up by Ron Dennis, the then McLaren chairman, who funded his career through the ranks. There was no obstacle to lavish sponsorship then on the grounds of colour.
Irony is not Lewis’s strong point. Take his call for statues to be torn down, made in one of several inflammatory social media posts.
He objected — understandably — to celebrations of men who, in a different time, exploited slavery for riches. But has he pondered for a moment the story of Mercedes Benz, the company who have provided him with most of his £220m fortune? The snag is that they used 40,000 slave labourers in World War II.
As negotiations are about to start, his team are ready to trim their F1 staff, or redeploy them, as the result of a sport-wide budget cap made more stringent by the exigencies of Covid-19.
Last week, casting freedom of speech aside, he berated Bernie Ecclestone for ‘uneducated and ignorant’ comments about racism, in which the 89-year-old’s chief crime was to challenge perceived orthodoxy. Yet how far did Hamilton educate himself as to the motives of the Black Lives Matter organisation before compromising social distancing by marching through London under their banner?
Does he know about their quasi-Marxist views? How do their anti-capitalist views fit with his status as the richest sportsman Britain has ever produced? If he thought it through, he might understand why some drivers may conceivably object to genuflecting before these ideals. It is a tyranny to demand they must do so. Spontaneity and sincerity are victims.
He has some noble intentions: improving the chances of all. But what is he doing to this end, other than indicating he may, soon, launch the Hamilton Commission, of all self-effacing initiatives? Why not invest, say, a year’s salary, in setting up a fund to bankroll drivers and engineers from non-white backgrounds to augment his other charity works? He has had since his debut in 2007 to think that one over.
He is motivated by some decent impulses. But, please, Lewis, stop throwing stones at your friends.