Vettel supports Hamilton’s call for a revolution – For several years now, Formula 1 has been very inaccessible to the most modest families. Lewis Hamilton is not happy about this as reported by TJ13 yesterday. He wants his sport to be accessible to everyone. An opinion shared by Sebastian Vettel.
The world has changed a lot since Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel started in Formula 1. And so have the costs of the sport and motorsport in general. For the British driver, who comes from a low-income family, it would be almost impossible for him to have a career in Formula 1 today, and somewhat hypocritically, Hamilton actually had huge financially backing from McLaren, but his point is valid.
Of the newest crop of drivers, only perhaps Esteban Ocon is a driver from a modest family background, but he is the exception.
For the journey he took before making his race debut with the McLaren F1 team, Lewis Hamilton would have to pay around €5m, not including karting. Sebastian Vettel, on the other hand, would have to spend around €4m to have the training he had back then. As a result, Lewis Hamilton would like his sport to become more accessible to everyone. Something that Sebastian Vettel would also like.
“There are some things that can be solved to try and make the sport more accessible for all backgrounds and all young people.” says Vettel.
“There is no quick fix,” continues the German,
“But at the end of the day the costs are too high. In all honesty, if I think back to when I started, the costs were lower, but they were still high. Anyway, I was lucky. I had Mr Gerhard Noack looking after me, the same man who looked after Michael [Schumacher] in his early days, probably 20 years before me, as a child.
“It was already very, very expensive at that time, so I think Michael needed help, and I needed help, because I didn’t have the money. I think the first season we did at the very beginning in karting, we managed to do half of it on our own and then we started to be very lucky to find people who supported us and helped us.
“I think the world has changed since then. I think sponsorship has changed, as has probably the willingness to invest money in young people and in motorsport. Anyway, it’s always been tricky. I don’t think there’s a quick fix, but there are some things that can be solved to try and make it more accessible for all backgrounds and all young people.
“It’s an expensive passion, no matter how you look at it. But it’s really exploded in the last few years, it’s become far too expensive,” the Aston Martin driver revealed.
If FIA claims that the best racing drivers is in F1, tgen they are wrong. Give equal opportunity to not rich people, then they will know. Furthermore, the engines are only dominated by Ferrari, Mercedes and Honda. Add in other makes of engines first. Then F1 can claim as no.1 motorsport in the world
Bwahahahahahahahahaha
You keep going on about hypocrisy. There is none. Without exception every driver on the grid today has required the backing of either a manufacturer, junior racing programme, sponsors, wealthy parents or in the extreme; extremely wealthy parents why single out Lewis Hamilton as somehow being unique in this regard. The only hypocrisy here is your own.
I don’t know where the author is going with this, motor racing has always been expensive and 30 years back karting was maybe a bit cheaper, but still expensive. Having seen the karting footage from the Schumacher documentary, the karts back then were quite basic if I see the ones they use nowadays. And it is not only about the money, you need a race track too. When I was a kid I wanted to go karting, but there was no money for that and no track within an hour (car) drive.
Nowadays you could go for simracing, but the gaming rigs can be too expensive for some kids. Currently someone in the Netherlands is setting up a mobile SimRace Academy so kids can try out simracing.