Lewis Hamilton has been a prominent figure in topics related to the environment and has often spoken about how people should play a bigger role to protect it. In a bid to further his cause, the British driver even sold his private jet worth $29,000,000 in 2019. However, the 7x world champion recently flew in a private plane to reach Belgium for the Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix, spending $3,600 in the process, reveals YouTube channel Kym Illman.
Ever since he became an advocate for environment-friendly activities, Hamilton has brought drastic changes to his lifestyle. Besides selling his private jet, the Briton also sold his favorite car as its emissions weren’t eco-friendly. TheSun.co.uk even reported Hamilton was seen queuing up with the general public to catch a plane at Los Angeles International Airport.
However, the British driver might be unable to queue up for flights with low passenger sectors, given its limited availability. This forces him to charter a plane to fulfill his travel needs, much like what happened in Spa last month.
Lewis Hamilton took ‘anti-environment’ measures to reach Belgium
YouTuber Kym Illman recently posted a video on his channel where he revealed what planes the F1 stars used to reach Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian GP. With Max Verstappen flying to Belgium aboard his private Dassault Falcon 900EX, all other teams chartered planes for their drivers, including one for Lewis Hamilton.
“Lewis Hamilton flew private on Wednesday evening, too. Like Charles, he was in a Cessna 560XL Citation XLS. This is an aircraft that carries eight people comfortably. It departed Oxford in England at 7:46 pm, flies just under an hour, and arrived at 8:44 pm. But interestingly, Lewis’ plane was the only one that did not park out on the Tarmac and let the passengers out there to walk across. He’s taxied straight to the hangar where he and his entourage deplaned.”
Given the flight was nearly an hour long, information gathered from Paramount Business Jets suggests Hamilton could have paid $3,600 to fly from Oxford to his destination.
Spa’s remoteness led to Hamilton going against his beliefs
Spa stands as one the most remote areas of a relatively tourist-heavy country like Belgium. The town does not have an airport, with the closest one in Liege being 45 mins away. A plane ride from Oxford (which may or may not have been according to Hamilton’s needs) to Liege and a subsequent 45-min car ride to Spa would have been taxing for the Briton, who instead chose to fly directly to Spa.
Upon diving deeper into the YouTuber’s videos, we find Hamilton usually prefers driving to the race venues in a Mercedes EQS, which is a completely electric car. Thus, it is safe to say the private plane was a one-off incident for the environment activist and not a regular occurrence despite his strong beliefs.
