12-year-old Lewis Hamilton talks about his experience with racism

12-year-old Lewis Hamilton talks about his experience with racism; the British driver recently ranted out his thoughts on George Floyd’s death.

Lewis Hamilton who has a decorated career to his name had to face certain unpleasant experiences while he was dreaming to be in a Formula 1 car.

In a report resurfaced which was published by BBC years ago shows a 12-year-old Hamilton talking about how he dealt with racism and how it was unpleasant most of the times.

The report states that how Go Karting, which was or maybe which still is a white-dominated sport had always posed difficulties for Hamilton, he even admitted that he used to hear racist remarks by people and eventually got used to it and take it all on racing.

In the video, his father Anthony Hamilton also confessed, if he had to he might use his son’s racial identity to get the attention of teams, however, it never came to that as Hamilton was fiercely talented to make a name for himself.

Watch the full video

But still, Hamilton is till date is the only back driver on the grid, and have been subjected to racial slurs at times, one of the prominent instances is where he got racially abused by the fans was during the Spanish GP, where few people coloured their faces in black, wore wigs and T-shirts emblazoned with the words ‘Hamilton’s family.’

Recently, Hamilton expressed his anger after protests broke out over the death of George Floyd who was captured on camera being harrassed by Minneapolis’ police, which resulted in his death.

The British driver even criticized the F1 fraternity as a whole, which kept silence over the issue for long. But after this many of his competitors issued a statement to express solidarity support.

Meanwhile his team, Mercedes-AMG also issued a statement to show support for him.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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