{"id":285350,"date":"2025-11-15T20:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285350\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T20:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:06:12","slug":"lewis-hamilton-calls-out-older-drivers-as-he-pledges-support-for-f1-rookies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285350\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton calls out \u201colder drivers\u201d as he pledges support for F1 rookies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> intends to continue supporting young drivers even after his own racing career comes to an end, he has confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media ahead of the Brazil Grand Prix, the seven-time Formula 1 champion compared the beginnings of his own racing career to the current crop of rookies racing in the 2025 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see young talent coming through. I remember getting here in 2007 and being one of them,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing experience, but before you get here, you have all these preconceived ideas of what it would be like.<\/p>\n

“Most often it doesn’t equal what you amounted it to be.”<\/p>\n

He continued, confronting the added pressure these drivers now have compared to when he started in F1 over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the driving does, but then there\u2019s all the other things that are around, and the pressure is hugely high, and these youngsters are getting bombarded with questions and obviously the social media,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut I think they\u2019ve all been handling it really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ferrari<\/a> driver has been asked repeatedly this season about the performance of several rookie drivers who joined the grid. In Brazil, home of Sauber<\/a> rookie driver Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a>, he confirmed that he would continue to back the next generation of drivers instead of criticising, even after his own retirement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’ve always wanted to be a driver.\u00a0Even when I leave here, I’ll always be someone that’s supporting\u00a0the\u00a0youth.\u00a0You hear so many negative things coming from\u00a0these older guys.<\/p>\n

“These older drivers that more often than not didn’t achieve much.\u00a0I just love to see\u00a0these guys keeping\u00a0their heads down.\u00a0Doing it with a smile and doing what\u00a0they love.
\u00a0
“And succeeding.\u00a0I’m as excited as you are to see\u00a0the\u00a0progression of\u00a0their careers.”<\/p>\n

\"Franco <\/p>\n

Franco Colapinto, Alpine<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone\/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

This season’s rookie drivers have been a strong talking point throughout the year. But the Brazil weekend was accompanied by news of Alpine’s Franco Colapinto<\/a> securing a contract with the team that will see him race with the outfit next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think he’s doing amazing,” Hamilton said of the young Argentine. “First of all, he’s a really lovely lad.\u00a0We did a flight together back from, I think it was a test,\u00a0maybe\u00a0the\u00a0race in Barcelona.
\u00a0
“We had a great conversation.\u00a0He’s just a genuinely nice human being, which is nice to see.\u00a0With a lot of weight on his shoulders, it’s not easy when you come into Formula 1, when things are uncertain.
\u00a0
“But I think he’s been doing a really great job.\u00a0I think he just needs to continue to do what he’s doing.”<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton intends to continue supporting young drivers even after his own racing career comes to an end,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[120293,49,48,578,930,576,577,932,129469,120292,82,4962],"class_list":{"0":"post-285350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-autu00f3dromo-josu00e9-carlos-pace","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-ferrari","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-lewis-hamilton","16":"tag-lewis-hamilton-calls-out-u201colder-driversu201d-as-he-pledges-support-for-f1-rookies","17":"tag-sao-paulo-gp","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-trendingteam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}