“Real action” needed to stop giving “older voices” a platform

An interview conducted last year with three-time world champion Piquet emerged this week, in which he used a racial slur in reference to Hamilton, resulting in condemnation from the F1 community and a ban from the paddock.

Piquet apologised to Hamilton, but denied his comment had any racial intent and disputed the way in which it was translated.

Hamilton appeared in Thursday’s FIA press conference ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix, speaking publicly for the first time about the matter, and gave his thanks for the support he had been shown.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of racism and criticism, and that negativity and archaic narratives for a long, long time, and undertones of discrimination,” Hamilton said.

“So there’s nothing really particularly new for me. I think it’s more about the bigger picture.

“I don’t really know why we are continuing to give these older voices a platform. Because they’re speaking upon our sport, and we’re looking to go somewhere completely different and it’s not representative of who we are as a sport now and where we’re planning to go.

“We’re looking to grow in the US and other countries, South Africa, and we need to be looking to the future and giving the younger people a platform that are more representative of today’s time, and who we are trying to be in the direction that we’re going.

“It’s not just about one individual, it’s not just about one use of that term. It’s the bigger picture.”

Both the FIA and F1 issued statements condemning Piquet’s comments, a stance echoed by a number of teams in a show of solidarity with Hamilton.

But Hamilton said the “knee-jerk reaction” of condemning racism was “not enough”, adding: “Now it’s about actual real action. We’ve got to actually start acting.

“It just comes back down to F1, to the media, we should not be giving these people a platform. These old voices, whether they’re subconscious or consciously do not agree that people like me should be in a sport like this, whether women should be here.

“Discrimination is not something we should be projecting and promoting, and giving a platform to create and divide people.

“The last couple of weeks, I don’t think there’s been a day go by where there’s been someone who has not been relevant in our sport for decades, trying to say negative things and starting to bring…