"There is no place for abuse, particularly racial abuse": Lewis Hamilton speaks out against Franco Colapinto fans attacking Yuki Tsunoda

Lewis Hamilton has spoken up against the online attacks that Yuki Tsunoda was subjected to during the F1 Imola GP by Franco Colapinto fans. With the return of the Argentinian, there has been a massive return of the fans from that region.

It is quite clear already that Franco Colapinto is a massive name in his country, but the Argentinian fans as well are very passionate in the manner in which they follow the sport. While this leads to Franco getting a lot of love from his countrymen, the contrary is also true, where the Argentinian fans can be quite brutal against anyone who is even slightly antagonistic to their driver.

Franco Colapinto had unintentionally blocked Yuki Tsunoda during an F1 Imola GP FP, and that led to an agitated reaction from the Japanese driver. As a consequence, the Red Bull driver was brutally attacked online by the Argentinian fans, which led to even Colapinto urging calm and respect from his followers.

Lewis Hamilton was questioned about the same, to which the 7x F1 champion felt that there is no room for abuse in the sport. He told F1TV,

"There is no place for abuse, particularly racial abuse. I think it's, we just got to continue to work on standing firm, standing up against those things. I hope that Yuki and, I hope they're both okay because I know it affects not only you, but it affects your family. It's, I don't know, I think people need, we need more empathy in the world today. It's such a cruel space, you know, there's so much negativity around."

He added,

"And what's really important is we can't stay complicit. If you see it happening, you need to call it out. And so many people just do stay complicit and that's what we've got to make sure we do less of."

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Lewis Hamilton reflects on a positive Friday in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton, on his part, had a positive first day of running in Monaco, where the Ferrari was unexpectedly fast and turned heads with the kind of performance it had. The team wasn't expecting the car to be this quick, and hence this level of performance was a bit of a surprise.

Lewis Hamilton was also just a tenth off the benchmark in FP2, and looking back at the weekend, he said,

“It went smoothly, FP1 was a bit of a challenge with traffic and everything. FP2 was much, much better. I’ve got a little bit of time to find, Charles is very quick. But otherwise, a good session. The [lap] time, I would say, there is more to find in my driving, in lines, in braking. I’ve got one-tenth, for example, at Turn 1."

He added,

“But there are bits here and there throughout the lap. The car, there are subtle changes they [Ferrari] need to make. I will not be making many changes at all. We might change one small thing like a quarter of a degree of camber, or something like that. But that will be it.”

Lewis Hamilton has won the F1 Monaco GP multiple times. With the car in form, the driver would be hoping to capitalize on it and score big.