#presser: qatar gp 2024

[wejustvibing]

Q: Are you starting to feel emotional at all about saying goodbye

LH: I don't particularly feel very emotional right this second, no. I mean I've had a whole year, so it's been emotional through the whole year. I would say that I'm less emotional in this moment. But, yesterday I was with IWC and they showed me a video of since 2013 and it was emotional. I'm sat down with bono just now and I'm like 'jesus, our last two races together, dude. can you believe it?' So, there's gonna be so many of those moments in these next two weeks where it'll be like 'shoot, it's nearly it' but I can't tell you when that's gonna be or how it's gonna feel. It's definitely gonna feel odd, it's definitely sad.

[wejustvibing]

a menace 😭

[wejustvibing]

Q: About Drivers' meeting with stewards and Lewis' reaction to F1's DEI Charter with the help of Hamilton Commission and Mission 44

LH: Firstly, I appreciate that. I'll answer this too. So, the meeting with the stewards was really, really productive. It's the first time we've really sat down and had a real, clear, open discussion with the stewards, who have such a difficult job to do over the weekend. Every overtake and every scenario is so different to the others. Nothing is gonna change for these two races but for next year we'll work on a process hopefully, we welcome having more conversations with them moving forward 'cause we really want to help them do a better job and they've welcomed that.

And yea (about the charter), honestly, so so proud and grateful to FOM, to F1 who really pushed to make sure that this got across the line. Obviously, it's been three years in the making, trying to push the sport in that right, in that positive direction and it's been already great to see F1 has started to invite kids and creating opportunities. I'm really grateful to all the teams signing on and the FIA. I didn't know when or if it was gonna happen so it makes me really proud to know that the work we've done wasn't a waste. We'll work closely with them, and I'll continue to work closely with F1 and the FIA over the following years to just make sure that we continue to move in the right direction. Creating opportunities for people, doesn't matter where you're from what you look like, I think that's really key.

[wejustvibing]

Look, I know Fred wanted it (debut with post season testing in Abu Dhabi) to happen. For me, I was in two minds. Driving the red car for the first time in Abu Dhabi does not excite me. In a perfect world, you’d get to drive it and not be seen and do the first rollout next year. When I did raise it, obviously with Toto, they had all these plans that I’ve got to go and see some of the sponsors and say their farewells.

So I don’t think it was ever going to actually be allowed, even if I’d asked to have done it. But because I’m contracted to the team until December 31st – and that’s totally fine. But it doesn’t bother me, again, because I wasn’t going to do the test. It’s not what I wanted to do. I told Fred that’s not what I wanted to do. Am I missing out on something? For sure. It definitely delays the process and makes the start of the year harder, but we’ll do our best to recover.

- Lewis Hamilton