“Shifted His Mind”: Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel Opened the Doors for Ralf Schumacher to Come Out of the Closet

Last week, Ralf Schumacher came out in front of the whole world, announcing that he is in a same-sex relationship. It has created waves, with messages of support and claims of positive changes in the F1 paddock coming in. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, looks back on the stance he and former driver Sebastian Vettel took to bring about these changes today.

F1, a sport where not many have come out to reveal their true sexuality in the past, is trying to keep up with the progressive change the world is taking. And Hamilton is all for it. In an interview with BBC, the seven-time world champion spoke about the role that he and Vettel played for the LGBTQ+ community.

At the same time, he remembers how Schumacher criticized him back then, insisting that it wasn’t a good idea to make himself vocal on this front. Now that the German former driver has come out himself, Hamilton has nothing but inspiring messages and praise for him.

“Perhaps today he may have shifted his mind,” the 39-year-old said. “Him taking that step sends such a positive message and liberates others to be able to do the same. We need more and more people to be free to do that.”

Support has poured in from almost every corner of the F1 community so far, but without Vettel and Hamilton’s work in the past, this may not have been possible.

Vettel and Hamilton were always vocal about the LGBTQ+ community

Vettel and Hamilton are arguably two of F1’s most outspoken drivers ever. They highlighted several social causes, using their platform as a means to spread messages of change all across the world.

LGBTQ+ rights were among those. In 2020, Vettel openly protested against the anti-LGBTQ+ law put up in Hungary, by wearing a t-shirt to show his support for the community ahead of that year’s Hungarian GP.

Hamilton, that year and the next, wore rainbow-themed helmets. He sported them in countries where there is next to no tolerance for the affected communities – Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

In this manner, the work Hamilton and Vettel put in inspired a generation. And even ones from the previous years are taking notes, with Schumacher possibly the first of several entities to come out as homosexual.