Lewis Hamilton has warned Formula 1 it needs to do more to raise issues in the countries where it races this season.
The 2023 F1 season gets underway at the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend in the same week where a group of 20 cross-party MPs called on F1 to open an independent inquiry into its association with nations with poor human rights records.
In response, F1 said it had “worked hard to be a positive force everywhere it races”.
But Hamilton said: “I can’t say whether or not I know if it has got worse but I’m not sure it’s got better while we have been coming all these years.
“For me, it’s only in these latter years that I have started understanding more and more of the challenges for the people here in Bahrain and also in Saudi Arabia as it was my first time there last year and I read about some of the troubles.”
Hamilton’s comments come in the wake of the MPs’ stance in Parliament as well as a damning assessment of F1 from the Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy.
Its head of advocacy Sayed Alwadaei said: “It is high time that F1 and the FIA stop allowing their presence in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to be used to sportswash the blood-soaked images of these autocracies.”
