Lewis Hamilton opens up to the obstacles of growing up in the UK and ‘white dominated’ Formula 1

Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton opened up about his experiences growing up in the UK with racism and being part of a ‘white dominated’ sport.

The Mercedes driver was instrumental in the F1 campaign against racism and the promotion of the Black Lives Matter movement over race weekends.

Hamilton spoke to football legend Thierry Henry and Olympic great Tommie Smith – in a chat hosted by Cougar – to discuss racism they have experienced in sports between three different generations.

Hamilton said, ‘I am in a sport that is dominated by white and there is very little diversity, for example. And with everything that’s happened in the United States, it really triggered a lot of emotions in me.

‘A lot of people think it only happens in the United States. Yes, there is police violence in the states, but systemic racism is all over the world.

‘A lot in Europe and England. I went through that a lot when I was growing up in the UK and when I started racing cars.

‘This year is the day and I now have the sport to recognize that it needs to do more.’

The 35-year-old Mercedes driver also began his early days in junior driving, when he and his father were said to be the only black people in the racing world.

He added: ‘When I went to those races as a kid, we were the only black people on the racing scene.

‘I don’t know if you’ve seen any cool runners but there is a scene where they arrive at the top of the hill and I don’t think they ever saw black people there and it was always like that with me and my dad.

“Especially when we just started and how it felt, I was always lucky to be able to lean back on my dad.”

Former Arsenal forward and Montreal Impact coach Thierry Henry also explained the obstacles he had to overcome in his youth and that he began to experience racism when he moved to the US to play for New York Red Bulls.

“I grew up in a bad neighborhood, which I thought at the time was the best neighborhood in the world because I couldn’t compare it to anything,” the Frenchman explained.

‘Because there was a lot of diversity in my neighborhood, I didn’t realize there was anywhere else. As I stepped out of my way, I started to realize that people started to make me feel like I wasn’t human.

‘The color of my skin was a problem, what I was wearing was a problem. If you sometimes have an extractor hood in Europe, it suddenly means that you come from a bad neighborhood. And if you have the color to match, that’s a double bill.

‘At one point I said that people stopped seeing my color because I played football, because by the way I was famous.

‘When I came to play in the US, my color came back because no one could recognize me depending on what state we were in. My color came back. It was the first time I felt like I was leaving my neighborhood.

When I arrived in New York, some people could recognize me and others couldn’t. When you ask for a taxi, he looks and sees that you have a certain color and turns on the light and suddenly he is no longer free. You’re left like ‘wait a minute, I’m alone here’. It hit me again.

“I’ve been called a ‘black bastard’ on live TV. It is what it is, you’ve heard it before, but this was live on TV which made it like ‘wow …’. ‘