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LEWIS HAMILTON talks about that qualifying lap in Singapore

Singapore Grand Prix 15 September 2018 | Marina Bay Street Circuit

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Lewis

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WOLFGANG VON TRIPS, 1950s

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Guys I am MAD.

Just found this in a Guardian article about Lewis.

"[Lewis] had in the past cited Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and his own father as his role models, and Bob Marley, Nas and Marvin Gaye among his favourite musicians. (One doubts that Niki Lauda or James Hunt would ever have come up with a similar list.)"

FUCKING FIRSTLY

With thanks to @cazzyf1 for her research into Niki:

Niki Lauda's favourite song was Fast Car by Tracy Chapman - a black woman. He was also a big fan of Bob Marley and Aretha Franklin, and is on record as liking at least one Rihanna song. Niki's list of favourite musicians absolutely included, and probably as a majority, black artists.

So a list of Niki's favourite artists would be pretty similar to Lewis's, actually, with at least one artist appearing on both of their lists.

James Hunt's taste in music isn't as widely known (he just didn't live long enough to leave behind as many detailed interviews and throwaway comments as Niki, sadly). But the guy CAMPAIGNED AGAINST APARTHEID. He criticised it live on air in commentary, while his producers instructed him to stop talking and he kept going. He tried to prevent his commentary being broadcast in apartheid South Africa and he donated his fee for those races to black-led activist causes when he wasn't successful. From another Guardian piece:

“During the South African apartheid years, I organised and chaired a discreet meeting in central London for wealthy individuals and foundations wanting to support black-led groups working for change there. The meeting had just started when the doorbell rang. A vaguely familiar-looking chap apologised for being late and asked if he could park his bike in the hall. It took me a while but eventually the penny dropped. Hunt was by then commentating on grand prix racing, alongside Murray Walker. He didn’t want his commentaries broadcast in South Africa, and when they were, he channelled his fees towards groups struggling for change there."

James wouldn't have listed MLK and Mandela as role models? Really? He was actively campaigning, fundraising and raising awareness about Mandela's cause.

(Interestingly, Tokyo Sexswale reported that Mandela loved Murray Walker and James's commentary and used to listen to them in jail on Robben Island, even though most of the other prisoners weren't bothered. Mandela outvoted them).

This kind of lazy dichotomy about Cool Drivers Then and Woke Drivers Now really annoys me. It creates a false binary with is deeply grounded in racism and in othering Lewis. It suggests there are two kinds of drivers: old (white), tough (by the standards of whiteness), cool (according to white culture), hard living drivers who didn't care about namby-pamby things like safety and social justice. Men who opened beer bottles with their anal sphincters and had sex with sports cars and women at the same time somehow. It is implied that modern drivers (for which read Lewis) are PR machines, soft, fragile, SJWs who care about social issues at the expense of their racing.

But life is not that simple, and the BS discourse does everyone a disservice. Niki liked black musicians, James campaigned for the abolition of apartheid, both openly supported female racers (James was Lella Lombardi's teammate for a while). Both were extremely vocal about safety. Suggesting that Lewis's activism (and Seb's, although that's treated as more of a laughable eccentricity because whiteness) has come from nowhere and is the antithesis of F1 ignores reality, sows discord and underscores the absolutely false Bernie Ecclestone school of thought which bleats "but Lewis isn't like us!" and implies that as a result, Lewis is a fish out of water who doesn't belong.

When actually, there are plenty of historic white drivers who would be honoured to be mentioned alongside Lewis, never mind the other way around.

Just because he's better, doesn't mean he's alone.

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9 times ivan capelli ate everybody up

rightly pointed out by @eliotheeangelis

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Who cares abt the Euros. ralf schumacher came out.

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2024 European Le Mans: The Iron Dames celebrate their first victory in this season at 4 Hours of Imola

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Maria Teresa de Filippis at the Grand Prix D'Europe 1958 (Belgium)

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MICHELE ALBORTEO during the 1986 FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

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LELLA LOMBARDI at the 1976 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX

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JACKIE STEWART, 1971

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RENÉ ARNOUX at the 1986 SPANISH GRAND PRIX

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Phil Hill, Ferrari, 1959 Monaco Grand Prix.