Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton wants to protect F1's future

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Lewis Hamilton is concerned fans are falling out of love with F1 and says the drivers felt the need to take action to protect its future.

The Grand Prix Drivers Association [GPDA] released a letter last week voicing its concerns regarding the governance of F1. While Hamilton is not a GPDA member he was part of meetings which led to the letter and says he could no longer stand by and watch the sport make what he feels are wrong decisions.

"The qualifying thing ... there is a fundamental flaw with it because the teams have to agree on one thing, so if one team decides it isn’t beneficial for them then something doesn’t get passed," Hamilton said. "I think our objective is not to be the decision makers – we don’t want to be the decision makers - we are just the only ones out there that can know what more is needed in order to make racing fun.

"As drivers we love the sport, we love racing, we love wheel to wheel racing. We started off in go-kart racing and we aspired to be one of the greats in the past and now you are driving and you are not challenged in a way you should be challenged, either physically or mentally, by the car and the rules and the decisions being taken for the rules are going in the wrong direction and we can’t stand still and let it happen.

"People are falling out of love with the sport and ultimately it will lead to you guys and also for us. I don’t want that. It has the opportunity to be the greatest sport in the world."

With elimination-style qualifying staying in place this weekend, Hamilton admits the lack of change was not unexpected.

"I wasn’t really surprised. Just because of the way F1 is. It is never a clear cut decision, it is always back-and-forth, back-and-forth… one minute it is one way, one minute it is another way, one minute it is another way. You know when you get lost and you end up where you started?

"It is interesting considering fans were so upset. I am happy with how it went but I heard there were a couple of teams that didn’t want to change it and that stopped it from being changed."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.