Hamilton shares ‘terrifying’ racist attack when duo jumped him as kid | F1 | Sport

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Lewis Hamilton has opened up on a “terrifying” encounter in which he claims he was attacked and subjected to racist abuse when he was a mother child. The seven-time F1 world champion admitted he refrained from even telling his parents about the traumatic ordeal for fear of being considered a “wuss”.

Having been excruciatingly pipped to an eighth world title last season in a dramatic final day decider in Abu Dhabi by Max Verstappen, Hamilton has experienced countless struggles this campaign as his Mercedes team have failed to keep pace with Red Bull and Ferrari. However, the season’s setbacks pale into insignificance compared to some of the other issues the Brit has been forced to contend with throughout his life.

Opening up on his experiences and colorful career at Vanity Fair, Hamilton reflected on feeling suppressed due to his skin color over the years, while shedding light on a particularly shocking incident from his childhood which evidently left a lasting scar. Addressing emotions which came to the surface following the racial upheavals in the spring and summer of 2020, he admitted: “There’s a lot of feelings that I suppressed at the time that I didn’t even realize that I suppressed – emotions and feelings that I had when I was younger – and it all came up.”

Hamilton went on to reveal he was often subjected to racial abuse growing up, including while go-karting as a junior over in Italy or France. “There was a lot of the N-word going around,” he adds. Sometimes the abuse he received even became physical.

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So upsetting were the events of that day that Hamilton confessed he never even discussed the episode with his parents for fear of being deemed a “wuss” and incapable of defending himself. He added: “I never spoke about it to my parents. I didn’t speak about it to my mum – I didn’t think she’d understand.

“And my dad, I was probably too scared to tell my dad, because I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss. You know, I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t defend myself. I just remember a lot of times just being alone, just in tears in my room.”

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