Lewis Hamilton doesn’t care if he doesn’t win another race as long as he uses the platform for change

Lewis Hamilton has said he doesn’t care if he doesn’t win another race as long as he uses his platform to speak.

The 38-year-old Formula One champion appeared on The Fast and the Curious podcast with Christian Hewgill, where Christian praised the athlete for standing up for LGBT rights.

Lewis responded by detailing how he felt a ‘responsibility’ to speak out on issues to change society.

Christian gushed: ‘You’ve paved the way in Formula One to talk about certain topics that haven’t been talked about before.

A small example. F1 fanatic fan. I am a sports announcer. I’m gay too. It was something I struggled with as a kid about coming out in the world of sports.

You went to Hungary in 2021 and stood up for LGBT rights. I wanted to say thank you. It means the world. It makes a big difference.

‘What inspired you to want to do that? Because certainly not all elite athletes like you do.

Lewis replied: ‘Well, thanks. And personally, I want to congratulate you. It’s a challenging journey, isn’t it?’

‘For me… I always say that we need more empathy and compassion in the world.

We are all human beings and there are all these things that people find challenging in different countries through governments, people with opinions, social media, all these different things.

‘We have this platform and I feel a great responsibility. I’m not just a Formula One driver and I can’t, you know, succeed and go on with my life.

‘This is a platform to generate changes, generate conversations. Provoking those uncomfortable conversations and then holding people accountable who have been happy with the status quo in the past, which has held people back and made people feel left out.’

He continued: ‘That frustrates me. We can make change and I want to be a part of making people feel more included. Our sport, motorsport, or any sport or business should not be able to go on without being diverse.’

There are so many different things that we need to challenge and fix. We also go to a lot of countries where they have these challenging human rights issues, where humans are just not treated as human beings. And in the past people just brushed against it.

He insisted: ‘It is very important that someone talks about it. I don’t care if I don’t win another race, I’m going to talk about those things and whether people like it or not.

After the interview, Christian reflected on the chat, saying, “Actually, I’m a little emotional, more than I thought I would be.”

“I didn’t think I would have the confidence to talk about my sexuality in the world of sports. And may Sir Lewis Hamilton congratulate you on your journey… I really didn’t know what to say to that. That is crazy.

‘That makes a difference. There are people who say that sports and politics shouldn’t mix and all that shit. But Lewis just summed up that sometimes it’s not politics, it’s people’s lives. And it is that people can be who they are.

“I didn’t come out for probably four or five years after I probably first suspected I was gay. And a big part of that was because he was involved in motorsport.

She wouldn’t have forgiven me if I hadn’t told her something. It means the absolute world that he responded to in the way that he did.

Speaking: The 38-year-old Formula One champion appeared on The Fast and the Curious podcast with Christian Hewgill, where Christian praised the sportsman for standing up for LGBT rights.

Platform: Lewis responded by detailing how he felt a ‘responsibility’ to speak out on issues to change society.

“It’s very easy for people to look at it and say, well, it’s just sport. It doesn’t make a difference. it does.

“And I hope that if there are female engineers who want to get into F1, female drivers, disabled people, gay people, whatever, black, white, they can do whatever they want.” You can be whoever the hell you want to be.

“And it’s people like Lewis Hamilton who will make people realize that. If I had realized about 15 years ago that I can be a game, be a sportswriter.

“I could have saved some money on therapy and he talking means the world.”