Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel believes the sport is now in a position to openly welcome a gay driver.
Vettel, who has become an activist for the environment and equal rights, featured on the cover of LGBTQ+ magazine Attitude, in which he discussed why F1 is ready for a gay driver.
“Perhaps it wouldn’t have been the case in the past, but now I think a gay Formula 1 driver would be welcomed, and rightly so,” he said.
“I feel that a gay driver would help to speed up the elimination of prejudice and help push our sport in a better direction. So I think and hope our sport would be ready for one.”
Vettel, along with fellow F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, have been the biggest supporters of the LGBTQ+ community amongst drivers within the sport, with both wearing t-shirts and helmets adorned with slogans and pride flags, whilst also sharing posts on social media.
Vettel made headline sports news last year at the Hungarian Grand Prix when he wore a rainbow shirt with the words ‘Same Love’ on the front.
Several teams this month are supporting Pride Month, with Mercedes changing its famous three-pointed star to a rainbow version, whilst Alpine confirmed they will be running rainbow flags on their engine cover.
Vettel believes attitudes in F1, which is a male dominated sport, are now changing amongst drivers, engineers and other employees, with the traditional image of a sportsman as some macho-hero now evolving.
“[There’s] this old image of a player or driver as a ‘hero’ who should match a certain set of criteria. But the judging criteria are just wrong. How are those stereotypes in any way related to performance? Who got to decide?
“It takes enormous courage to show your real self rather than hiding behind a façade based on what people expect.”
Vettel has gone off the deep end with this nonsense and really needs to get the hell out of F1. Why should fans even need to know the sexual preference of a driver, or anyone in general? The whole LGBT-whatever-new-letter-has-been-added-this-week+ movement is nothing more than a circus act for mentally ill and extremely boring people to get attention without being creative or possessing any talent. If your sexual preference is your whole identity than you are beyond uninteresting. These people need to get a personality, or at the very least learn a useful trade and live a simple life wearing earth tones instead of walking around looking like Ronald McDonald while begging for attention. Put down the commie propaganda and go listen to jazz and classical music and look at classical art in order to regain sanity and brain cells.
If people start getting into F1 based on their sexual preference — which is what Vettel is implying here — then F1 might as well be turned into a fixed “sport” for entertainment purposes only; because the only people who should be in F1 are qualified drivers, not people who have a certain skin color, gender, or sexual preference. At least with pay drivers they are *usually* somewhat qualified to be there and have at least put the work in whether they are good or not. But when diversity BS is used, all of that ends up getting bypassed and it destroys the core of it all.
Well said.
You’re missing the point entirely. Vettel is simply saying that F1 fans, the drivers and teams are now well educated enough that an openly gay driver would feel welcomed, rather than vilified in the sport. However, your ignorance suggests otherwise…
Zo is dat !
Niets mis met jezelf zijn !
Ook in de formule 1 !