Toto Wolff Advises Hamilton to Refrain From Politics

Recently, the NFL’s ‘Take A Knee‘ protest has taken the sporting world by storm. Lewis Hamilton took a stand earlier this week when he defended the peaceful ‘take a knee’ protests by NFL players during the playing of the national anthem in the US. Hamilton recently posted a controversial video involving US President Donald Trump on Instagram. The social media manager later deleted the video under the orders of the Mercedes team. Toto Wolff feels that it would be wise for Lewis to distance himself from political debates, especially since the F1 fraternity will be visiting USA soon.

Wolff said “This is a very controversial and polarising story. I wouldn’t want to get involved in politics. Lewis’ feelings about human rights are very strong and I think he wanted to show that and probably Instagram as the communication channel is something that he needs to rethink. But I can relate to his feelings. I think we are here as sport teams and sports should unite and I’m not sure that is happening everywhere in the world. So I would rather lead by example and not comment on politics,”

However, Wolff admitted that telling Lewis directly would not be the ideal approach to deal with the situation. “The more you try to limit him – put him in a box – the more detrimental it will be for his performance. The old mentality of ‘a racing driver has to be like this or like that’ is invalid for Lewis.”

I have to agree with Toto on this one. In this day and age, it is not a good idea to publicly challenge political views. Especially when you will be racing in that country. Don’t get me wrong, its good to have an opinion on something. But sometimes things are better left unsaid.