Lewis Hamilton has spoken passionately about his support for the LGBTQI+ community, saying he will never stop using his platform to help underprivileged groups.
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion regularly uses his status for good, whether that be helmet and t-shirt designs, statements in the media or posts to his huge social media audience.
Hamilton has raced with a rainbow flag on his helmet in multiple middle eastern countries where homosexuality is illegal, and faced some resistance in Hungary in 2021.
In the backdrop of the August race in Budapest, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban was attempting to pass an anti-gay law which the EU described as a ‘flagrant form of discrimination’.
Hamilton and fellow champion Sebastian Vettel both raced with rainbow flags on their helmets, while Vettel said he would happily take punishment for a pre-race t-shirt in the colours.
Speaking to The Fast and the Curious, Hamilton called the proposed law ‘unacceptable, cowardly and misguided’ a stance which F1 reporter Christian Hewgill thanked him for in a heartwarming interview.
Orban later took the law to a referendum, and it failed when 1.6million protesters spoiled their ballots.
Responding to the praise, Hamilton said: “Thank you, and firstly I commend you also because it’s a challenging journey.
“I think for me, I’m always saying that we need more empathy and compassion in the world. Everyone.
“We’re all human beings and there are all of these things that people find challenging in different countries, different governments, people with opinions, social media and different things.
“We have this platform and I feel a huge responsibility, I’m not just a Formula 1 driver and could just have success and go about my life.
“This is a platform to really spark change, spark conversation which is really the beginning of those things, sparking uncomfortable conversations and then holding people accountable who have been happy with status quo in the past which has held people down, which has made people not included and it frustrates me and goes into that fear thing.
“We can make change and I want to be part of that and making people feel more included, motorsport or any sport or business shouldn’t be able to continue with not being diverse.
“There’s not enough access for people from that community, you don’t see enough access for a lot of people with disabilities in our sport, when have you seen someone working in our industry with disabilities?
“There’s so many different things that we need to challenge and fix and also we’re going to a lot of countries where they have these challenging human rights issues where humans are not treated as human beings and in the past people just brushed by it like it wasn’t important.
“It is so important that someone speaks out on it and I don’t care if I don’t win another race, I’m going to speak on those things whether they like it or not.”
Sadly for Hamilton, it appears they don’t like it, with F1’s governing body, the FIA, updating their sporting code to state that drivers need prior approval for ‘political, religious and personal statements’.
There has been widespread condemnation of the ruling across the grid, but the FIA are yet to back down, saying punishments could be administered if statements are made ‘on track’.
