“I hope this speaks volumes to people of color in your team”: When Lewis Hamilton slammed Helmut Marko for calling his BLM movement a ‘distraction’

Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko were involved in a controversy back in 2020 when the BLM movement was in full swing.

Hamilton and other drivers expressed their support for the movement as they took a knee before the first race in Austria. Amidst such an uprising to which F1 drivers lent their support, false allegations about Marko calling Hamilton "to be distracted" spread like wildfire.

Soon after hearing the rumors, Hamilton was triggered as he released a statement on Instagram calling out Red Bull Racing to take swift action.

“Helmut, it deeply saddens me that you consider fighting for equal treatment of black people and people of colour, a distraction,” the Mercedes driver's statement read.

“I’m actually quite offended," he added. "A distraction for me was fans showing up in black face to taunt my family on race weekends. A distraction for me was the unnecessary and additional adversity and unfair treatment I faced as a child, teen, and even now, due to the colour of my skin."

He continued:

“I hope this speaks volumes to the few people of colour you do have on your team, about your priorities and how you view them. Wake up. This sport needs to change.”

Following Lewis Hamilton's outburst on social media, Red Bull quickly stepped in to clarify that Helmut Marko had not made any such comments to the media, and the fake news was spread through disreputable sources.

Upon realization, the Mercedes driver deleted the post and later reached out to the Red Bull top boss and privately apologized for criticizing him on social media. Marko confirmed the same, saying:

"Lewis is committed, that's a good thing," Marko told German outlet AutoBild. "He apologised to me, that's all there is to it."

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Lewis Hamilton calls the Mercedes W14 a "masterpiece" in its own sense

Mercedes is yet to recover from the stumble it took after the 2022 F1 regulations change as it is currently mired in the fight for the best-of-the-rest spot behind Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton in the F1 Grand Prix of Japan

The flawed Mercedes W13 and its successor, the W14, are by far the least competitive machinery built by the Brackley-based team in the past decade. However, Lewis Hamilton didn't wish to bin these cars as he calls them the stepping stones to success.

"Well, we won't ever bin the car of course. These cars are still masterpieces, really, even if they're not the fastest car in the world," Hamilton was quoted as saying by RacingNews365.com.

He added:

"Two thousand people have worked so hard to build these things, and they will continue to be a part of our history and our learning curve. There will be bits of it that we try to change, try to hold on to some of the positives because there's always positives, good and bad sides, and so we're trying to hold on to the positives."

Both cars have failed to achieve the lofty standards set by their predecessors as Lewis Hamilton is yet to win a race post-regulation changes.