Drivers, Monza, 2020

Hamilton missed ‘taking a knee’ due to mis-timed toilet trip

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In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says it’s “not the end of the world” that he missed taking a knee at yesterday’s pre-race ‘end racism observance’.

What they say

Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel were both absent from the pre-race end racism observance when it was shown during the broadcast of yesterday’s race:

[It was] just timing. I went back to my garage, it’s the furthest away. I took the scooter back and just basically ran out of time. I thought I left to come back in time. Usually I’m guided of when to leave, I left when I was told to leave the garage to come back. By the time I got back, everyone had already taken the knee.

So definitely I missed it. But it’s not the end of the world. I got to see that my team continued to take the knee, which I think is great. And we’ll just try to do better with timing next time. Perhaps I won’t go all the way back to my garage when it’s that far away. In the past, usually there is another toilet somewhere closer.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Renault’s decision to rebrand its team prompted puzzled responses:

So when they put sister-brand Infiniti on the Red Bull cars Renault weren’t happy. And now that they have their own respectable team.. they put Alpine one it.

I don’t get it. The Renault brand is way more connected to Formula 1. Most people remotely interested in F1 know about the 2005 and 2006 seasons and Renaults succes. Besides, Renault mostly only hurt their reputation between 2014 and 2018 with slow-unreliable engines. From 2019 onwards they fixed that – they are a respectable team now. Why wouldn’t they want the Renault-brand to benefit from that?
HK (@Me4me)

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On this day in F1

  • 45 years ago today Niki Lauda clinched his first world championship by finishing third for Ferrari at Monza, while team mate Clay Regazzoni won the race.

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39 comments on “Hamilton missed ‘taking a knee’ due to mis-timed toilet trip”

  1. What has f1fanatic turned into ? Gutter press.

    1. Since rebranding the focus seems to be on as many different posts as possible, often just repeating press releases with little or no own commentary or insight.
      I guess it’s a SEO / adware thing?

    2. I’m also surprised to see this sort of thing on this website. I come here for news on F1 not toilet breaks, if people want updates on that sort of thing go to toxic twitter.

      Sad times, things like this should not make headlines

    3. What has f1fanatic turned into ?

      RaceFans obviously :)

  2. COTD seems to have forgotten Renault cheated, not in some obscure way, but by deliberately crashing.
    That’s what I remember them for.

    1. Shhhh, that was ING and the evil Flavio not Renault.

      1. Flavio Pat and Renault are named cursed forever as cheaters!

    2. Renault got outed, other teams have got away with similar cheats.

  3. Time for this nonsense to end.

  4. When you gotta go, you gotta go

  5. Racing Points, as well as Mercedes seem to be slow at the getaway at this race. Dunno about Williams, but could this be about inability to use higher modes during Races now?

    1. Hamilton got away just fine twice. More likely just less grip in P2 slot combined with poor starts for Bottas and Stroll.

    2. @tornado
      Mercedes & RP were the fastest and second fastest cars respectively in this race. As mentioned by above, Lewis’s starts were fine, however the other 3 drivers are just a waste for those seats.

  6. COD seems to not understand the Reanult team will be branded Renault Alpine (Like Mercedes AMG) not just ALPINE.

    1. The releases I’ve seen say Alpine F1 Racing only. The engine will be Renault E-TECH hybrid but the team won’t have Renault in it at all.

    2. Let me google that for you:

      Starting from the 2021 season, Groupe Renault’s team becomes Alpine F1® Team

    3. Am I the only one who thinks the re-brand might be preparation for a sale of the team ?

      1. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

      2. Seems strange to do this now when their performances are picking up.

  7. So Hamilton misses taking a knee on the grid to go take a squat elsewhere :D

    1. When you gotta go you gotta go. Brown matter lives.

      (FWIW that was just a joke. Racism should be exposed and set straight)

  8. On CoTD, I see Renault’s move to rebrand to Alpine as being quite sensible tbh.

    I’ve said on here before, I never quite understood what Renault’s marketing angle is/was. They’re the only manufacturer on the grid that do not have a top end (yes I am considering the current NSX in this category) performance car in it showrooms. Their current line up is pretty average, apart from the Megane 265 RS, everything else is pretty much “run-of-the-mill”.

    If Renault are looking to revive the Alpine brand, which I believe they’ve looking to do for a while now, this will serve as the best marketing platform. From a branding perspective, F1 is very much a platform to flog performance vehicles (see AMG, Aston Martin, Mclaren, Ferrari, Alfa), Renault doesnt quite fit, does it? Honda uses F1 as training ground for the engineers, hence they have different drivers.

  9. Vettel was lucky that his brakes failed on that straight elsewhere on track it would have resulted in nasty crash at high speed.

    1. and this is probably why charles is “beating” Seb so ofthen in this horribly dangoerus car, charles is driving like he has something to prove and younger, seb most liky wants to avoid to DIEING for a p12.

      imo today ferrari tired to kill both their drivers.

    2. Brakes are most likely to fail at the end of a straight, because that’s when they are needed most.

  10. Mr Black Lives Matters himself missed ‘taking a knee’ due to toilet trip

    “What a yoke!” :D

  11. I agree with Lewis. Missing a ritual gesture it’s not the end of the world. But what’s Vettel excuse?

    1. I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think there is a bit of a love affair between Hamilton and Vettel. After the race when Hamilton was asked about his team mate he called his team mate “Seb” before correcting himself.

      1. Ahahaha. It’s like middle school romance between a pair that always hate each other.

  12. Imagine the bullying from Ham if another driver has missed his little dog and pony show due to needing a poo. He would have slaughtered then on social media!

  13. Hamilton makes a big deal about drivers not taking a knee at Austria. Then another big deal about keeping the ceremony going for future GP’s this year. A few races later and its suddenly okay for him to miss it? Hypocrisy much?

    I know I’m going to get slammed by the hamilton lovers who can’t conceive him doing anything wrong but hopefully the neutrals will see my point?

    1. This neutral gets and agrees with your point, Adam1

    2. agree, hypocrisy in optima forma.
      But of course there is not much to say about his priority’s.. he had something more important to do.

  14. This is why I have a problem with this. It is all a show, nobody takes it serious.

    Meanwhile to really end racism and bring any equality, real steps must be taken, not parades and show of knee bending.

    Meanwhile Hamilton is taking a dump.

    1. Makes a change from him taking a giant dump on his naysayers after every race.

  15. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    7th September 2020, 8:33

    Ah yes, Mr ‘nothing is more important than this and I will keep urging all drivers to do the same thing I do’ thinks it’s ‘not the end of the world to miss it’.

    Aka: Like everyone already said, it’s yet another meme that some people use to make others do their bidding.

  16. Funny.
    Hamilton’s greatest cause is not the end of the world after all… Two of the drivers who’ve been most vocal about having the ceremony had better things to do instead.
    And this – after the mess that was the Hungarian GP ceremony.

  17. I don’t want Lewis to feel forced into taking the knee but someone needs to explain the importance of this gesture to him so next time he won’t consider going to the loo as being more important than stopping racism.
    I feel like we’re facing an uphill battle to keep this in place and it may die a silent death if nothing is done.

Comments are closed.