Lewis Hamilton happy with F1’s more joined-up approach to anti-racism demonstration for British GP

After criticism of its haphazard approach to the global anti-racism movement at the last two races, F1’s organisers gave teams an extra 10 minutes on the grid ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix so that the drivers could demonstrate in a more orderly display.

The result was a ceremony much like the one at the first race of this delayed season in Austria last month, where 14 drivers, led by Mercedes’ six-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, chose to kneel and six remained standing. 

This time seven drivers chose to remain standing, Haas’s Kevin Magnussen joining the original six of Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo), Carlos Sainz (McLaren) and Daniil Kvyat (AlphaTauri) in electing not to take a knee. Magnussen admitted recently that he was uncomfortable with the gesture's links to the Black Lives Matter organisation.

All the drivers wore ‘End Racism’ t-shirts, apart from Hamilton who wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt.

It is thought the pre-race demonstration will continue in some form until the end of this season.

Hamilton has admitted that he would eventually like to see all 19 of his fellow drivers take the knee alongside him. But he declared himself happy with F1’s more joined-up approach and praised the sport’s management for responding to recent criticism.

“I’m really really happy with what F1 organisers have done,” he said after taking a record seventh British Grand Prix victory. “Last week I had really great Zoom conversations with Chase [Carey] and Ross [Brawn] about what we could do better.  And how we could solidify our approach and show more unity together.

“I don’t know how it looked on TV but it felt a lot more organised and it didn’t take a lot for us to have that extra 10 minutes. What is really important is to keep that up because we have this incredible platform with so many people watching.

“Every single one of us needs to be reminded every now and then of how serious things can be so that people are aware. And what is more important is that F1 follows through and how they said they are going to try to attack these things within our industry. That is an ongoing discussion but I feel really confident to see everyone's view and moving towards it.”