Sebastian Vettel has been vocal about Formula 1 not serving its moral responsibilities as a sport with a massive footprint globally.
Formula 1 has been scrutinized for making some problematic decisions, from accepting Grand Prix invitations from some autocratic regimes to adding an excessive number of races and increasing the number of working days for every team.
Even though it has pledged to achieve environmentally-friendly goals, many remarks it is not enough. While speaking on politics when questioned about scheduling races in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, F1 claims it has to remain neutral.
However, the answer is not good enough for Sebastian Vettel, for whom F1’s interest is to grab lucrative deals. But the German asks at what cost they are selling their morals?
“I think the trouble is that ultimately a sport, and it’s the same as a country, is governed by individual people,” he said. “Individual people have individual opinions, and backgrounds, whatever, so it is of course difficult.”
“But we have to find the perfect people to sort of govern our sport, and then apply the right path going forward. There’s more than just that interest, there’s obviously huge financial interest, in going forward.”
“But I think at some point you need to ask your question, and people in charge need to ask themselves the question: do you have a moral? Do you therefore say no to certain things? Or do you just say ‘yes’ to any big deal that’s around the corner, but for the wrong reasons?”
“I think that’s the bigger picture stuff that people in charge ultimately need to ask themselves.”
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Sebastian Vettel thinks F1 can do more
Asked whether F1 can be more militant about their approach towards achieving more fairness in the world. Vettel responds by saying, F1 can surely do better than waving a flag for two minutes.
“I don’t know what exactly is the best way to not just communicate on a flag that lies on the track for a couple of minutes. But certainly, I feel that our sport could apply a lot of pressure and could be of immense help to spread that fairness around the globe even more.”
“Because in the end, I think it’s not right to judge people or to apply certain laws and to differentiate people just because they happen to love a man instead of a woman or a woman instead of a man.”
“I think any form of separation is wrong. Imagine we would all be the same, I think we wouldn’t progress. I mean, imagine all the cars would look the same in Formula 1.”
“It would be boring: not just the same colour, but also the same aero bits. Now going more into our language, it would be absolutely boring, we would never make progress.”
“And the same goes for us. I think we have evolved so much as human species, because we are all different in a way, and I think we should celebrate the difference, rather than be afraid of it.”
