Picture Credit: Twitter
While Formula 1 was hit by a storm that came after Nelson Piquet's racial remarks on Lewis Hamilton, in a recent development, Hamilton's rival Max Verstappen's girlfriend Kelly Piquet has liked a social media post that defended her father Nelson in the entire controversy.
Notably, three-time F1 champion Nelson Piquet had used a derogatory racial term to refer to Hamilton not once but twice during an interview after which even Formula 1 and FIA had to jump in to offer support to an "incredible ambassador" for their sport.
Defending Piquet's action, his relative Rodrigo had taken to Instagram to offer the other side of the argument. Rodrigo mentioned that their "second grandmother called us all" the n-word and emphasised that it was not an offensive word. In the post, Rodrigo explains that they learnt in the family that it was actually a "word of love."
It was this particular post that was liked by Kelly Piquet who is dating Verstappen.
Meanwhile, Hamilton had earlier responded to the entire incident with a tweet. He shared that was not only the words and language that were the problem but the entire mindset that needed to be changed.
"It’s more than language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport. I’ve been surrounded by these attitudes and targeted my whole life. There has been plenty of time to learn. Time has come for action," Hamilton tweeted.
Hamilton's Mercedes teammate George Russell also responded to his tweet. "Huge respect to LH. He has done more for the sport than any driver in history, not just on track but off it. The fact that he and so many others are STILL having to deal with this behaviour is unacceptable. We all need to stand together against discrimination of any kind," he shared while quoting Hamilton's tweet.