It's been a busy few weeks for six time F1 World Champion, Lewis Hamilton. Alongside preparing for the revised Grand Prix season, starting with Austria tomorrow (Friday, 3rd July), he has been a vocal supporter and marcher for BLM, and has begun The Hamilton Commission - a research partnership dedicated to looking at how motorsport can be used to engage young people from black backgrounds into Science, Technology and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. He's also been pushing for change, and small change is occurring, with his team, Mercedes, committing to racing their cars in black for the season in support.
He's also been predictably abused on social media, and had a bit of a set-to with long time supporter, and perdurable rich weasel, Bernie Ecclestone.
By anyone's true reckoning, Hamilton is almost unarguably the most successful sporting persona that Britain has produced for the past twenty years. He should be celebrated, loved and supported almost without question.
"Hamilton is almost unarguably the most successful sporting persona that Britain has produced for the past twenty years"
So why isn't he? Why isn't he a shoe-in most years for Sports Personality of the Year? He's won it once, in 2014. Andy Murray has won it three times. More shockingly, in his own sport, Damon Hill has won the thing twice. That's one-time champion, not-actually-all-that-good, Damon Hill. Hamilton is certainly not lacking in personality, whether you like it or not, but then the same could be said for the likes of Murray, and, again using F1 as a barometer, certainly in the case of another winner, Nigel Mansell.
Let's ask Lewis.
"Even now, the media ask me different questions than they do my competitors and make accusations directly and indirectly - you're not British enough, not humble enough, not loved enough by the public."
And it's there. Right there in that quote.
"You're not British enough".
"And it's there. Right there in that quote. 'You're not British enough'"
When Hamilton recently wrote about race and the BLM movement in The Sunday Times, the article and its headline quotes were tweeted out by Sky Sports F1, the BBC and other outlets. To read the responses from the Great British crayon-grabbers was enlightening. Nearly all of them referenced his non-domicile tax status in Monaco as the reason why he was unloved, and "not British enough".
Hold up...
I presume that one time Monaco-resident Jenson Button was, by that reference, also not British enough? Or that Swiss resident, Michael Schumacher actually wasn't terribly German? Monaco hotelier David Coulthard shouldn't wear the saltire on his helmet?
Well no, you never hear that argument. Ever. It never enters the conversation.
Why?
It's why we should listen to Lewis Hamilton when he talks about race. Bernie Ecclestone might sit there stroking his cat and telling us that "he never said anything to me about it", but it's not his experience that counts.
It's also why we should all have a really hard look at ourselves as to why we might not side with the likes of Hamilton. Why we don't love him as a true British great. Because that's absolutely what he is.
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