Spielberg bei Knittelfeld (Austria) (AFP)
"Winning the title this year would make even more sense" than its previous six due to the pandemic and the fight against racism, said Lewis Hamilton on Thursday, on the eve of the start of the F1 season.
"It is such a monumental year in the sense that you have this pandemic which is still very present and which we are fighting, and also, on a more personal level, the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for justice and equality ", justified the Briton, the first black driver in the history of the top category in motorsport.
"So yes, winning the world title during this period would be, I think, even more important than before," said the star of the Mercedes team, who has a first opportunity this year to equal the record of seven world crowns. from the German Michael Schumacher.
The 35-year-old driver has regularly spoken of the discrimination suffered and the lack of diversity in F1, but never with as much vigor as since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police at the end of May in the United States.
In recent weeks, Hamilton, born to a black father and a white mother, has repeatedly urged his sport and his subscribers on social networks to take a stand against racism, before taking to the streets and launch a commission on diversity in the motorsport professions.
Her indignation made many drivers react, she led her team to adopt a black livery for 2020 and to launch an internal audit to promote diversity.
F1 for its part announced the creation of a "task force" and a fund dedicated to "increasing diversity and opportunities at all levels" of a discipline that is still very white and very masculine.
The 2020 season, which should have started in mid-March in Australia but has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, starts this weekend in Austria, on the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, the first of a series of eight races in Europe until 'at the beginning of September.
© 2020 AFP