A comment made by former Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone last year has prompted a legal challenge to Lewis Hamilton’s first world championship win.
Felipe Massa, who lost the 2008 title to Hamilton by a single point, seized upon Ecclestone’s remark as proof he was that year’s true champion.
If Ecclestone’s words ultimately force Hamilton to surrender silverware which has sat on his mantlepiece for over a decade and a half, it will be the culmination of years of brewing animosity between the pair.
By the time Hamilton arrived in F1 in 2007, Ecclestone had wielded near-total control of the championship for decades. That ended 10 years later when Liberty Media took over and gave him the token title ‘chairman emeritus’.
While Ecclestone was in charge, crossing him was unwise. Hamilton’s rapid emergence as the sport’s superstar meant he could afford to sail closer to the wind than most. He challenged Ecclestone’s refusal to embrace the emerging power of social media and received a stack of cease-and-desist letters from Formula One Management for posting their footage on his feeds.
Once Liberty Media booted Ecclestone upstairs, Hamilton didn’t disguise his satisfaction. “I’m glad that Liberty has come in because I’m not quite sure if Bernie was here they would have made any changes,” he said in 2019.
“They still wouldn’t have social media because he thought it was useless and it’s just not important, all these different things.”
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Hamilton may have been dismayed by Ecclestone’s archaic attitude to social media but F1’s lack of progress in other areas concerned him more. In 2020 he launched the Hamilton Commission to investigate the reasons why black people and other groups are under-represented in motorsport, which led to the creation of the Ignite charity to promote diversity in motorsport.
While Ecclestone described Hamilton’s campaign as “wonderful” he also questioned its merit, saying it wouldn’t “do anything bad or good for Formula 1.” In the same interview he added: “In lots of cases, black people are more racist than what white people are.”
The new administration at F1 denounced the comments made by its former head. “At a time when unity is needed to tackle racism and inequality, we completely disagree with Bernie Ecclestone’s comments that have no place in…
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