"I felt like I needed to get revenge on them"- When Lewis Hamilton faced racial abuse as a kid in the karting world

As the only black driver on the F1 grid for a long time, Lewis Hamilton has faced racism throughout his career. The latest controversy being former world champion Nelson Piquet's racial slur against the Briton in an interview from last November. Amidst this, an old video has resurfaced on social media, where a young Hamilton reflects on the racist comments made towards him.

In the video, Lewis Hamilton admits that he learned to ignore such comments:

"In the past years I have heard racist names being called to me. The first time it happened I felt really upset, I told my mum and dad, and I felt like I needed to get revenge on them. But lately, if anybody had said anything to me I would just ignore them and get them back on the track."

Today, however, as a seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton has the platform to stand up for himself and speak out against such issues. He uses his influence as a sportsman to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion and is a leading advocate for the same.

In the same video, the Briton's father is seen speaking about the issue:

"We don't get involved with people who have problems about whether we win, what color we are, or whatever the issue might be for them. The fact is that you know we're here to race, and so we get on the track and we do our best."

Lewis Hamilton expects an "interesting" race for Mercedes at the British GP

The seven-time world champion admitted that he does not expect the British GP to be "spectacular" for Mercedes, but certainly believes it will be "interesting".

As reported by Autosport, he said:

"Silverstone is still one of the best circuits, if not the best, in the sense of having all the medium- and high-speed corners. And the high-speed corners are always the most fun to drive. With these cars that we have today, I mean, if you look at Barcelona, we had bouncing in the high-speed corners, so it might not be spectacular, but I’m hoping by then we may have fixed it. But we will see."

"We’re better in medium and high-speed corners, probably, than we are in the low-speed corners, but we have bouncing. So, I don’t know how it’s going to be through Copse and all those places."

He continued:

"It’ll be interesting for us there. I think for all of us it is going to be amazing. And we also can follow a little bit closer this year. So hopefully the race will be better."

After a rough start to the 2022 season, Lewis Hamilton will be taking some momentum into his home race at Silverstone this weekend following his podium finish at the Canadian Grand Prix.