“As someone who loves the sport, it’s definitely disappointing to see what’s going on right now. It doesn’t look good from the outside world. I think it’s a really important time for the sport to really show and stick to its values, holding ourselves accountable for our actions.
“And it’s a really pivotal moment for the sport – in terms of what we project to the world. How it’s handled. And it’s not been handled very well to this point.”
Lewis Hamilton there, not for the first time on a massively important and sensitive subject, getting it absolutely spot on.
The seven-time world champion was speaking ahead of Formula 1’s Jeddah round last week. Specifically, he’d been asked about the off-track controversies currently engulfing the championship.
The Christian Horner/Red Bull behaviour situation has been running longest, but the question posed to Hamilton also concerned the investigations currently facing FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. In the championship’s hive brain, let alone the consciousness of the millions of fans watching on, neither is going to go away fast. And nor should they.
The latter situation, allegedly, is an amazing example of an organisation shooting itself in the foot. To have the FIA president under investigation concerning the ultimately trivial matter of a pitstop penalty (plus whatever went on before the Las Vegas race return) just gives oxygen to a very real fear of race fixing, a la what certain sections of the F1 fanbase feel about the Abu Dhabi 2021 officiating saga. We await the predictable outcome of the FIA marking itself here.
In the former, the Horner saga, the story has taken yet more twists. But the message from the man at the centre was: let’s talk about something else.
Both Horner and Ben Sulayem are in unwanted F1 spotlights
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“As far as I’m concerned, as far as Red Bull is concerned, we move on and we look to the future,” Horner said in the Jeddah team principals’ press conference. “My wife has been phenomenally supportive throughout this, as have my family, but the intrusion on my family is now enough.”
That was four days on from Horner walking Geri Horner down the Bahrain paddock in such an obvious relations display gambit that the Daily Mail was rapidly on the phone to a body language expert. The pair were back in front of the cameras after Max Verstappen had snapped up a second victory breeze in a week in…
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