Lando Norris, McLaren, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

F1 drivers may ‘take a knee’ to support anti-racism at Austrian GP, says Norris

2020 F1 season

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Formula 1 drivers may show their support for anti-racism protests by ‘taking a knee’ at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, according to Lando Norris.

The McLaren driver told the Press Association the subject will be discussed during Friday’s meeting of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.

“Some of the drivers have already been speaking [about taking a knee],” he said. “If we are going to do it, we should all do it as a grid.”

Taking a knee – kneeling during a pre-event national anthem performance – has become a symbol of support for anti-racism since National Football League player Colin Kaepernick made the gesture in 2016. The following hear Lewis Hamilton considered doing the same at the United States Grand Prix.

Competitors in some other sports have adopted the practice following the death of George Floyd last month which prompted a fresh wave of anti-racism protests. Hamilton lobbied others within the sport to support the movement, and F1 has responded by launching its ‘#WeRaceAsOne’ initiative, while Hamilton’s Mercedes team yesterday announced it will contest the season in a new black tribute livery.

Norris said the drivers “Will do whatever we can to show that we care and respect everyone. We will do what is right when the time comes.”

“I want to do better than any other driver, but everyone should be given the same opportunity and treated the same,” he added. “It is not fair that people get treated differently because of their race.

“This sport reaches millions of people and the more we can do as drivers, teams, and as a community in Formula One, the bigger impact we can have.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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77 comments on “F1 drivers may ‘take a knee’ to support anti-racism at Austrian GP, says Norris”

  1. Will be interesting to see whether all drivers get behind that (not sure they will). And what they do if not.

    1. I think there’s a difference between doing something because you want to and doing something because you’ve been told you have to. It’ll be great to see if all the drivers do it because they want to.

      I have to admit that sometimes it winds me up when people put pressure on me to do something because that’s what “society” has decided is the appropriate action. Taking a knee, posting a black square on social media, clapping for the NHS, tweeting “pray for Paris”, and putting a rainbow in a profile picture are all lovely gestures, yet I have done none of these, despite supporting the causes. I detest being told that if I believe in something I have to partake in these often meaningless gestures. I give money to charities that I support and engage in often-difficult debates with those close to me to try to change their minds about the discrimination and bigotry in the world.

      If a driver chooses not to “take a knee”, I don’t believe that makes him racist or unsupportive, it may simply mean that he also detests being told which action he must take to “address” the issue.

      1. It would be pretty awful for a driver to let “nobody tells me what to do” stubbornness outweigh the positive message they would be sending by making a public statement such as this.

      2. First world problems almost always take priority to first world people. Racism in America and bushfires in Australia? You have fundraisings, protests etc.

        People dying of hunger in Yemen or chldren being genitally mutilated in Tanzania? Oh no, we don’t do that here. And of course, things like the planet being literally destroyed would sound hypocritical from a lot of people involved in F1, even Hamilton, so it’s hardly ever touched.

        I don’t mind people taking a stand to these issues, since they obviously need to be solved too, but as someone who was born in a third world country and often tries fruitlessly to bring people’s attentions to things like the MSF, I can’t help but to feel bitter at this moral myopia.

      3. A lot of that sounds like you just don’t like being told what to do. Which is fair enough, i’m not saying don’t be like that but i think you might be missing a some things.
        It may seem like a pointless gesture, changing your profile picture to a black square, putting a rainbow in your window, clapping for carers etc, but doing these things keep the topic in the mainstream. Things move quickly, including the news. Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? Ye that didn’t last too long. If people keep doing things to keep the issue in the mainstream it will keep people thinking about them in their day to day lives and can change opinions and actions.

      4. I hope not all will. I don’t see why Kvyat should do it, for example. Half Russian/half Bashkir, he is from country that never had slavery and black people. So as Raikkonen and Bottas.
        That western domestic agenda forcibly pushed beyond domestic policies is becoming quite annoying. Like we don’t have own problems. And like there are no much more important problems over the world, like 1/3 of human population leaving in beggar conditions, with no food, no electricity, no utilities, no clothes, no any modern technology etc. Yet no one in that western world care about it.

        1. @regs Russia and Finland both have some black people in them, even if they are not as high a proportion as the USA, UK or France. In both cases, there are around 50,000 black people. Simply because they are small minorities doesn’t mean they don’t exist. (Both have historically had slavery, although the practise ended in those nations in 1861 and 1335 respectively).

          While every issue is interconnected, discrimination against non-white ethnicity is something that affects F1 directly – Mercedes had to sack people last year for being racist, to give one of the better-known recent examples. It’s something F1 needs to address, if it is to maintain a claim to be the pinnacle of motorsport.

          1. Black in Russia are less than 0,01% of population. Just around 14000. And most of them are not citizens, but temporal residents studying in Universities.

            Russia never had slavery. Russia had some feudalist systems through the time, mostly imported from the west. 1861 was the end of Serfdom Rights. Serfdorm Rights was not legalized slavery. Serfdorm Rights were limiting migration of agricultural peasants from central Russia. They had to get a permission (visa) to migrate to another region (landlord). But they were free to move within own region and free to do things they want. They just had to work on land they owned. And in cases of permission to migrate to another region (landlord) or in case of forced migration, landlords were obliged to provide land to ownership and personal properties. Landlords couldn’t harm peasants.

  2. Any non-genuine act is pointless. That’ll do for a nice Instagram picture, a bit of PR and that’s it. What’s the use? Donate money, do some charity work, whatever, but don’t take poses, change colours of your cars or just talk. I mean, you can do it, but I don’t see it as something generous or worth of awe. I see most of public figures doing these things as a modern sort of war profiteers. Now we’re all worried about racism… Especially big companies like Coca Cola, Deimler Benz and such, they truly care and I’ve no doubt, money is money, no matter the colour of hand from they take it. Yeah, I’m of a skeptical mind. We don’t even talk of F1 anymore, but its battle against racism. F1 which only had one black driver in its history (that I know of), and 99% of them being from privileged classes. A sport which knows no meritocracy whatsoever. Taking a knee… Right…

  3. Sameer Cader (@)
    30th June 2020, 13:43

    Pathetic and no chance all drivers will join.

    First of all they are sportsman, not politicians so they shouldn’t do such things.

    Secondly, i would find it incredibly disrespectful and rude if someone kneeled down during my national anthem. Hence i think it will be disrespectful to Austria and therefore drivers will create more controversy doing this so therefore they wont.

    1. You thinking somebody is disrespectful for keening during a song is nothing compared to people being slaughtered for the amount of pigmentation in their skin. Get a grip.

      1. Broccoliface
        1st July 2020, 0:23

        Glad to see someone else cares for the white farmers in South Africa. Good on ya man.

        1. Mark (@saffaracerr)
          1st July 2020, 5:36

          Oh c’mon

      2. kevin citron
        1st July 2020, 3:10

        protest on your own time. you’re being paid to drive a car and shutup

        1. Sameer Cader (@)
          1st July 2020, 4:01

          Exactly!!!

        2. ColdFly (@)
          1st July 2020, 4:44

          That’s not correct.
          He (through his team) is contractually obliged to partake in the pre-race formalities. Drivers have been fined when showing up late.

          Not sure though if it includes a prescribed body posture during the national anthem.

        3. I live in the U.S. Keeling during our national anthem pretty much killed football for me I just hope they don’t start this nonsense here.

        4. @kevin citron Incorrect. The drivers are being paid to drive a car and comply with their other contractual obligations. Given that one of them will be to give appropriate support to causes in which F1 participates, and kneeling has been specifically permitted by Liberty, one could even argue they’re adhering more closely with their contracts if they kneel than if they stand. (Hastening to add that standing would still comply with the contract, and I think drivers should make their own informed choice about stance without getting told off by us or their fellows either way).

          1. I wish there was an edit because that @ did not work (apologies to kevin)…

      3. “people being slaughtered for the amount of pigmentation in their skin.”

        Ah yes, until may 2020, this used to be normal all around the world…. Dot dot dot.

    2. William Jones
      30th June 2020, 20:43

      Would you have found it incredibly disrespectful and rude if it hadn’t become a form of peaceful protest? You know, given that kneeling is traditionally a form of the deepest respect, and kneeling became a symbol specifically to respect the anthem and still protest.

      1. Sameer Cader (@)
        1st July 2020, 4:03

        Then why are people to stand for the national anthem if kneeling is respectful.

        I understand doing it to your own country (i.e. Hamilton kneeling in Britain or Sainz in Spain) but to do so towards another countries anthem is not on.

        Any driver who does so should be fined heavily.

        1. William Jones
          1st July 2020, 10:21

          Because people aren’t being as respectful to the anthems as they are when they show respect to Her Maj Queen Lizzie when they… what is it they do again. That’s right, take a knee before her to show the deepest of respect.

        2. @sam-cader Because both stances are respectful. Yes, there is more than one legitimate way to do things…

  4. Derek Edwards
    30th June 2020, 14:18

    If the drivers are happy to do so then I have no problem with it. After all, it means very little to have something said from the mouths of the oppressed if the oppressors then silence or dismiss it. For something like this to have an impact it needs to come from those who look and talk and speak like the oppressors, but who represent the opposite of them. When Lewis kneels many people will dismiss it as Lewis being Lewis, but if other drivers kneel it shows that they disagree with those who look like them and spout regressive views. These drivers also have status and a voice, which many people do not, so if they want to use their position to make an impact in what they believe in, then they should go ahead and do it.

    Also, taking the knee is not disrespectful, as anybody who has bothered to research it (as opposed to having a knee-jerk reaction) would know. Kaepernick decided on the gesture after discussion with an army veteran precisely because it was a gesture that showed respect, the kind of thing on does at the grave of a fallen comrade, also the representation of a flag at half mast. If you are going to go on about disrespect then at least do a little bit of self-improvement first.

  5. Neil (@neilosjames)
    30th June 2020, 14:19

    I think it would be a positive thing to do. Obviously not during the host country’s national anthem, but at a different point in the race build-up.

    1. @neilosjames Why not? That’s exactly when it’s considered most respectful to do it; kneeling at some random part of the race build-up would be disrespectful to the race build-up.

  6. Oh God… Spare us this!

    1. ‘Not a problem. Turn off your TV.’ God

      1. William Jones
        30th June 2020, 20:44

        Just ignore them and let them virtue signal, it’s clearly very important that they get us all know how little respect he gives the protest.

        1. @William Jones
          It anyone is virtual signalling here, it’s Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.

          1. *virtue
            Damn autocorrect!

          2. William Jones
            1st July 2020, 10:23

            No, he would be virtue signalling if he were signalling his virtue without taking any actual action. He is taking action, therefore, not virtue signalling, unlike you, sat on your computer doing zero except letting us all know exactly what your virtues are. By signalling them. Instead of actually taking action.

      2. @riptide
        How inclusive you “liberals” can be, LOL!

    2. @liko41 In light of how vocal Lewis has been regarding the issue and Mercedes altering their livery, I’d say it’s highly likely that Lewis will be kneeling.

      Real question is whether the rest of the drivers will be kneeling with him. These guys are a fairly unique bunch, and have come together when there have been tragedies (eg Bianchi, Hubert). They may not come together in this instance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. I hope they do.

      1. @tomcat173
        I hope they won’t.
        This whole kneeling thing is utter nonsense.
        Formula One is already setting a good example of fairness by treating Lewis Hamilton as he deserved, as a superstar, without any prejudice or stigma.

  7. RocketTankski
    30th June 2020, 14:47

    A bonus DWC point if any of them can go into a full Russian folk dance routine

  8. All those celebs with privilege always want to be on the spotlight.

  9. Everyone will bow, c’mon. Since this is out in the open now, anyone who’s not going to bow will be immediately labeled racist. And in this political climate no one wants to sit there and defend their motivations in front of media, both old-school and social with its mob mentality and short attention span.

    1. The population is made up of four types of people: A small number hunt witches. A large number go along with the hunt. A larger number are silent. A tiny number oppose it. The final group–as if by magic–become witches.

      Bret Weinstein

      1. GtisBetter (@)
        30th June 2020, 22:03

        That doesn’t seem right. Kaepernick was the hunted and now has turned the table. And there are plenty of examples where that analogy is wrong.

        1. Kaepernick was the first witchhunter.

    2. Jack (@jackisthestig)
      1st July 2020, 0:51

      I do hope anyone not ‘taking a knee’ doesn’t get pilloried for it. Max, to his credit, has kept a dignified silence while all this virtue-signalling nonsense has been going on.

      1. William Jones
        1st July 2020, 10:25

        he says while virtue signalling.

  10. I’m pretty sure Max and Kimi won’t do that.

    1. Why not?

      1. Haven’t seen any comments on BLM, racism or whatever from these two drivers. Despite Hamilton beeing super angry and disappointed. So would be weird te see them take a knee next Sunday.

        1. You are incorrect Rene .. Verstappen have reacted on Social Media .. he participated in black-out tuesday on instagram .. that day people where asked to post a black image with #blm hashtag and Verstappen has done this! Isn’t that enough??

          1. mmm .. now i see he placed in on Instagram Stories which is only displayed for one day .. so i can’t prove it really but you have to take my word on it that he published it on blackout tuesday!

    2. That neither of them felt any need to talk to it until now does not mean they can’t be persuaded to join in if the other drivers want to do this though @rvg013.

      Sure, they might not feel it is needed – although since Kimi doesn’t really have any social media, and doesn’t exactly do much interviews etc either, do we really know? Have people asked him about this? But they might be in for showing a sign of support together.

      1. Max posted a black image on black-out tuesday so he did react already!

  11. Josh (@canadianjosh)
    30th June 2020, 15:55

    Agreed, a discussion should be a two way street that ends in compromise. The way this movement has gone about it is “everything the BLM movement says is right, if you don’t agree we will loot and burn down buildings. I agree with equal rights and zero racism but this movement is dividing people.

    1. @canadianjosh This started because discussion was refused by the other side. With bullets and other forms of violence. The division long predates BLM’s existence.

  12. I support BLM and racial injustice, but I think this is not good as it may single out individual drivers and make them look bad, when they simply don’t know what to do. Yes, as good human beings they should support the cause.. but some people just don’t care.. you know who I am talking about lol Will be interesting to see what he does.

    1. I support BLM and an end to** racial injustice.. correction.

    2. The article mentions that they want to bring this up in the drivers meeting, they want to do it ALL TOGETHER @david-beau:
      “If we are going to do it, we should all do it as a grid.”

  13. Why not enforce that all cars are painted black as well. If this goes on any further all other colors would be considered racist and the team daring to use any other color scheme than black would lose all its sponsors.

    1. So all cars are displaying a rainbow for the 2020 season; and your conclusion from that is eventually all colours will be considered racist?

      1. William Jones
        30th June 2020, 20:47

        How can he argue against the struggle against racism if he doesn’t build a carefully curated strawman to attack?

    2. Some if not most will kneel, I pray kimi doesn’t, if they all kneel then we know F1 is over, what Bernie said is right and he is being torched, the BLM movement doesn’t care for the actual lives of black people – why don’t they or Hamilton protest with fist in air in places like chicago were many black lives are lost? I don’t support BLM but do agree with the slogan, as well as all lives matter.

  14. Ridiculously and meaningless gesture. How about participating in crafting solutions? Comment on, or suggest, changes in legislation, as in, actual wording that creates a colorblind system. Just saying “the system sucks and I’m taking a knee until it’s fixed” is childish. You could start by reading a Police Use-of-Force Handbook, and pointing out where it’s gone wrong. By the way, those books weren’t written yesterday, they’ve been scrutinized and re-written countless times in efforts to be fair.

    1. William Jones
      30th June 2020, 20:48

      Take out the paragraph that describes how to ignore your colleague as he murders a man in front of you for starters.

      1. @William Jones

        That response show how unserious you actually are. Are you familiar with excited delirium? Are you aware of why the cops actually did what they did?

        Surely not, it’s all outrage without any understanding. Thus you can’t actually point at what specific policy you want changed, what you want the police to do instead and what the consequences are of those changes.

        1. @aapje There is nothing about excited delierium that excuses any form of police brutality, and I’m surprised you know what it is and still think it can. Especially since the symptoms make it sound like it’s actually severe overheating, which warrants a hospital visit for emergency fluid infusion, not police intervention of any description. (If it’s the police that happen to notice this, then they should have arranged for an ambulance with appropriate sedatives, and then simply sought to calm the patient rather than continue “police intervention”, that generally makes it worse due to stress response. Very few crimes are so time-sensitive that an interrogation cannot wait until a victim of a medical emergency is fit for interrogation).

          Thought you might want to know that, since if that’s the reason the police did what they did, they engaged in a ablist act as well as a racist one.

          1. @alianora-la-canta

            The police are not doctors and there is no teleportation technology to transport someone to a hospital. They often have to wait for medics.

            In the cases where a suspect died while being pressed to the ground, the police typically were waiting for an ambulance to come. That’s what happened in the Floyd case. We have the cops on video saying that they think it is excited delirium and telling bystanders that an ambulance is on the way.

            Also, my understanding of excited delirium is that it is not overheating, but rather a psychotic panic. The person feels extremely threatened (not necessarily just by the police, but everything around them), which means that they can’t be calmed without sedatives (which the police don’t have and are not allowed to administer, for good reason).

            Typical and legal ways in which the police calm people is to try to reason with them, restrict their ability to move (like with handcuffs or tasers) and with pain (pepper spray and tasers). The issue is that reasoning usually doesn’t work with psychotic people and that excited delirium seems to result in people not calming when restrained and not feeling or caring about pain. So most of the methods that the police normally use to calm someone, don’t work on people with excited delirium. This is why Minneapolis had the guideline that these people could be constrained on their belly like this, despite the risks.

            Note that it is unclear whether Floyd died due to what the police did or because of excited delirium, which seems very dangerous in itself. There was a case where a person with that condition died alone in his cell without ever having been restrained beforehand. Floyd also said that he had trouble breathing while he was standing, without a police officer touching him at that time.

            For me, the main question concerning the guilt of the cops, is whether it was reasonable for them to believe that Floyd had excited delirium. If so, the cops seem to have followed the rules that they were trained to use, which you can’t blame on the cops, since I don’t think the cops should be making their own rules. Of course, those rules be bad, but that is the responsibility of the police department and/or the (local) legislative.

            I don’t see why you can be so sure that this is racism (or ablism). I have seen no slur used and no evidence that this kind of violence is only used on black people. In fact, we have Tony Timpa, Willard Truckenmiller, Donald Lewis as examples of white people who died in police custody, where the latter’s case is especially similar to Floyd’s (you can find the video online).

            The rules that the police use have to work for a large variety of situations and you can’t just look at the end result in one specific case and proclaim that everything would always work out better if the police did X instead of Y. If the police had let Floyd go and he would have attacked and killed someone, wouldn’t you and the media be chastising the cops for not restraining him?

            Frankly, I’ve seen so many media and others misrepresent the Floyd case, that I believe that most people are utterly misinformed.

          2. @aapje The police need to make sure they’re not actively contributing to killing a patient if they wish for that to have credibility. Too often, that doesn’t happen. And no, they often aren’t “waiting for an ambulance” until after the suspect is dead or about to die (simply because the police claim they’re waiting for an ambulance doesn’t mean they actually are, and ambulance arrival times have a habit of not matching such claims).

            Overheating and psychosis are often mistaken for one another (something I discovered two years ago when I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the latter when I actually had the former. During the Hungarian Grand Prix 2018). This is a particular problem because these people don’t appear to recover from their psychosis on a day-to-day basis because the fact they recovered completely in the first few hours that psychiatric units put aside as “adaptation period” gets ignored. Funnily enough, most of the methods police and security use to “calm” people don’t work on overheating people either, if they’re overheated past a certain point – because they have no idea the police/security are doing anything specific, just that other people are there and making them even hotter through additional sensory input.

            Police and security don’t seem to have figured out that “calm their own behaviour as much as possible and take away as much of their own sensory contribution as possible” is necessary, even though that’s part of the first aid training for overheating. Note that all three of the “typical and legal” ways you cite for police to “calm” someone will have the opposite effect if they have overheating (or psychosis, or many forms of autism, or any sort of police phobia – which by the way is more common among black people due to established poor and discriminatory policing practises). Add in that police (at least in Chicago, according to their own files) see a given action by a black person as more severe resistance than the same action by a white person, meaning they’re more likely to use “calming” aggravational, injurious methods against black than white people in a given situation…

            If this is indeed what the police book says to do, it is self-evidently wrong, and should be rewritten, because for a large number of people and situations, it’s bound to make things worse. It is interesting that police forces prefer not to see this, or if they do see it, prefer not to correct their advice. (Also, there is no police book in a civilised nation that authorises kneeling on anyone’s neck during an arrest, under any circumstances. Partly because it’s apt to induce survival struggle).

            One doesn’t have to be touched by a police officer for that officer to be aggravating a condition.

            A white person would not have had their neck kneeled upon, unless they were part of some othered minority themselves. White people have died in police custody (although that’s also something that’s disproprtionately the province of “othered” groups).

            You just told me why ableism is involved – because if it’s excited delirium, that’s a recognised medical condition, and it means the police treated the suspect worse because they had a recognised medical condition. Same if it is overheating. I’m a little worried that you didn’t notice.

            The police simply needed to contain the situation; there are lots of ways of doing that which don’t involve making the situation worse. And unless you are suggesting George Floyd was a serial killer, more people have died due to the police acting as they have, than would have done had they simply let George go (let alone if they’d opted for an ethical method of getting their patient to hospital, which is what they should have done).

            Please forgive my delay in responding; your response was triggering, because it reminds me that certain ways of enjoying F1 are closed to me because police and security officers share the sort of ignorance you showed in that post. This is one reason why everyone who has claimed that F1 isn’t affected by the issues Lewis Hamilton has raised is wrong – because the root mistakes that cause police brutality in the USA are also made by police and security forces at race tracks across the world, or have potential to be made by such people. It ends up being a problem to all sorts of minorities in particular, who get their behaviour misread.

          3. @alianora-la-canta

            The police need to make sure they’re not actively contributing to killing a patient if they wish for that to have credibility.

            It’s not clear at this time that what the police did, did contribute to the death of Floyd. He already had trouble breathing while standing and people with excited delirium have died with no or minimal police intervention. You are doing what I see so often: make claims that are not based on actual proven fact, but on speculation.

            A white person would not have had their neck kneeled upon

            Donald Lewis was white and had his neck kneeled on. You can find the bodycam video on Youtube when searching for “Donald Lewis excited delirium.”

            You just told me why ableism is involved – because if it’s excited delirium, that’s a recognised medical condition, and it means the police treated the suspect worse because they had a recognised medical condition.

            The cops involved seemed to think that they were acting appropriately to contain a person who was very dangerous and unable to be reasoned with. You are just showing your biases again by your certainty that they treated the person worse than warranted and could treat him better. Perhaps that is true, perhaps it isn’t. You are too blinded by your biases to be trusted on this.

            The police simply needed to contain the situation

            It’s hard to take you seriously if you think that it is simple for the police to contain people who behave wildly due to being drunk, drugged, mentally ill or otherwise. There are plenty of videos of people with suspected excited delirium who clearly cannot simply be ‘contained.’

            let alone if they’d opted for an ethical method of getting their patient to hospital, which is what they should have done

            How would you have done so? He refused to sit in a car. Do you have that teleporter that we could really use?

            And unless you are suggesting George Floyd was a serial killer, more people have died due to the police acting as they have, than would have done had they simply let George go

            George Floyd had the intent to drive drunkenly, which could easily have killed multiple people. If he had, the media and people like you with 20/20 hindsight would surely have blamed the police for letting him go.

            The very nature of the job of a police officer is that they can’t just let people be, but are expected to remove dangerous or otherwise lawbreaking people from society, so the rest of us are safe from harm. This is a very hard and in some cases, nigh impossible job. Why don’t you get a job as a police officer and show the world that you can do better? You can try to reason with everyone, but you’ll soon realize that many can’t be reasoned with. You can try your ‘letting them go’ solution in that case. However, you’ll also get to deal with the people that were victimized by those you let go. Fewer people will be killed by the police. Many more people will be killed by those you let go.

          4. @aapje The bare facts of the case, already shown on video, prove the police were “actively contributing to killing a patient” in this case. Unless you are claiming the video is forged in some way (which nobody else I know of has done), the proof is already public domain.

            Your suggested terms yields no viceo on Donald Lewis, so all I can say is that the written description of his restraint was a hogtie – which at no point requires anything to be done to the neck. (Also, that written description of “excited delirium” also matched some combination of overheating and awareness of imminent deliberate harmful action by police.

            You have apparently forgotten that the police can lie – or that they’ve already been shown to have lied at least once on the George Floyd case (why else do you think they were initially cleared before being arrested?) You have also told me, fairly bluntly, that you believe that police should be allowed to kill disabled people if they feel like it, even when patently unnecessary. If you do not realise this, please review what you have written so far and do the learning you need to do to understand why your attitude makes it dangerous for people with disabilities (like me) to go to Grands Prix. Until you learn that, you cannot be taken seriously because you have destroyed your own credibility on this matter.

          5. Yes, I want disabled people to be killed. Have a nice day.

    2. What William said. You are unserious about the discussion. There is no paragraph anywhere that says police can watch a colleague murder someone. There are very detailed rules of engagement in procedural handbooks. Yes, there are procedures that allow deadly use of force and places where it’s disallowed. In Floyd’s case, the potential bad actors have all been charged and Minnesota law will be applied to each of them. How do you prefer the system to work?

  15. I’m all for showing support to oppressed minorities, however kneeling or sitting to a national anthem of a country not related to racism is misguided
    Save it for the US grand prix

    1. GtisBetter (@)
      30th June 2020, 20:21

      Where does it say that they will do it during the national anthem? I don’t think they will.

    2. Ipsom Sitting would be disrespectful, but kneeling was chosen specifically because it is respectful. Especially since the issue is essentially a worldwide one, meaning that as a global sport aiming to be the best and acknowledging it can do better at what it does by promoting equality. The anthem would be knelt at because Austria is a country in the world. It would be for Austrians to decide what Austria can do to make things more equal, just as F1 is investigating that question with regard to itself.

  16. NeverElectric
    1st July 2020, 2:05

    “The people most opposed to change tend to be the same people who have the most to lose from that change.”
    True in life, true in motorsport.

  17. Sergey Martyn
    2nd July 2020, 20:54

    If any driver kneel I’ll quit watching F1.

    1. Well, look at what I found here.

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