Lewis Hamilton has described comments made by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko about Mexican driver Sergio P\u00e9rez as \u201ccompletely unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n
After this month\u2019s Italian Grand Prix, Marko attributed P\u00e9rez\u2019s form to his ethnicity, telling ServusTV: \u201cWe know that he has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he is just not as completely focused in his head as Max [Verstappen] is or as Sebastian [Vettel],\u201d according to Reuters. <\/p>\n
The 80-year-old Austrian later apologized for his remarks, and P\u00e9rez, speaking ahead of this weekend\u2019s Singapore Grand Prix, said that he had also received a personal apology. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s completely unacceptable what he said,\u201d Mercedes driver Hamilton, who has long spoken out against racial discrimination in Formula One, told Sky Sports when asked about Marko\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst we say there\u2019s no room for any type of discrimination within this sport \u2026 to have leaders and people in his position making comments like this is not good for us moving forwards. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just highlights firstly the work that still needs to be done. There are a lot of people in the background that really are trying to combat these sorts of things but it\u2019s hard to manoeuvre when you have people that are at the top that have those sorts of mindsets that just stop us from progressing.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a public apology issued via ServusTV, Marko said that he wants \u201cto make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalise about the people from any country, any race, any ethnicity.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI was trying to make a point that Checo has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.\u201d <\/p>\n
P\u00e9rez, currently second behind teammate Verstappen in this season\u2019s driver standings, said that receiving a personal apology from Marko was \u201cmore important than anything else.\u201d <\/p>\n
He told reporters: \u201cI know him and I know that he doesn\u2019t mean it that way as well, and that to me is what matters. When you have a personal relationship with someone, I think it\u2019s a feeling you\u2019re going to have.\u201d <\/p>\n
Verstappen is aiming to win a record-extending 11th consecutive race in Singapore on Sunday, though he said this week that he doesn\u2019t think Red Bull is as competitive on street circuits compared to other tracks. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe street circuits are a little bit tougher for our car,\u201d he said. \u201cI still think that we can do a good job but it will be very tight.\u201d <\/p>\n
Qualifying gets underway at 9 p.m. local time (9 a.m. Eastern Time) on Saturday and the race itself begins at 8 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) on Sunday. <\/p>\n\n
Lewis Hamilton has described comments made by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko about Mexican driver Sergio P\u00e9rez as \u201ccompletely unacceptable.\u201d After this month\u2019s Italian Grand Prix, Marko attributed P\u00e9rez\u2019s form to his ethnicity, telling ServusTV: \u201cWe know that he has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}