In recent weeks Lewis Hamilton has been hitting the headlines for things other than his bid for a seventh world championship title.

Spearheading Formula One's campaign to increase diversity in the sport, the Briton has also been extremely active in the quest to end racism.

However, some feel that his activism is distracting him from his day job, citing the mistakes that led to two penalties over the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, and losing out to teammate Valtteri Bottas as the season finally got underway.

Asked ahead of this week's second round, if his activism is a distraction and is causing him to lose focus, the Briton was in no doubt.

"I don't feel like I need to re-focus," he said. "I think if you watch the race, my race was pretty strong.

"I do naturally need to do a better job on the weekend," he admitted, "but I wouldn't say that I was distracted by any means.

"I continue to stay focused, as I was before, still focused on both trying to fight and win this championship, but also fighting for equal rights."

Ahead of last week's season opener, in a symbolic move which has been driven by the Mercedes driver, the majority of his colleagues joined him in 'taking the knee'.

Asked if there will be a repeat this weekend he was unsure.

"This weekend I don't believe we have that position," he replied, referring to an allocated location on the grid ahead of the national anthem, "where we had the space and the time to utilise the moment and make a stand. You'll probably go to the national anthem and it's not my goal to take the knee during the national anthem.

"It was really encouraging to see (the Red Bull team) taking the knee," he added, "which I thought was great. So maybe, if we have time, there's something my team and I could do. It's just about time, there's not a lot of time before the race.

"I'm not against taking a knee again, so if I can find a way of making sure it doesn't get in the way of us doing our job, then I will."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by DRAGON F1, 13/07/2020 9:34

"Lewis Hamilton slaughtered Max Verstappen in Qualifying on Saturday when conditions were so wet that Max said he "couldn't see anything"! These extreme wet conditions totally levelled the performance of all the cars, and most pundits thought Max was the 'master of the wet'!! Lol
Lewis Hamilton also slaughtered Max Verstappen in the Race on Sunday, where the track favoured the Red Bull cars historically!! Lol

IS LEWIS DISTRACTED?? LOL
NO, LEWIS IS TOTALLY FOCUSED!!
It's just that LEWIS and some other people can do more than one thing at a time, but others can't!! @Wokingchap

Also imo the penalty for the clash with Albon was totally wrong, as LEWIS didn't deliberately push Alex off the track, unlike Max who did deliberately and physically pushed Charles off the track last year on the same circuit but received absolutely no penalty whatsoever! This was favouritism towards Max in Austria and other places generally!!
Alex Albion is just making rookie mistakes here as in Brazil last year, still thinking that he's racing in F2 and everything is easy!! Lol

Lewis Hamilton don't really care much about the penalties here because he knows he can't change them and has seen much more unfair penalties given to him over his 14 years in F1, and he prefers to just look forward and get on with his job of Winning the F1 World Championship for Himself and Mercedes!!
"

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2. Posted by Pavlo, 11/07/2020 6:16

"@stogie - who exactly do you mean by „others“?
Who exactly didn’t slow down under yellow flags?
Seb and Lando showed how do you act to avoid a crash, avoided, and paid with their positions.
Both penalties are fair. Yes, 5-times champion also gets penalty when breaks the rules, what a surprise :)"

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3. Posted by Pavlo, 11/07/2020 6:13

"@stogie - who exactly do you mean by „others“?
There were no others, Seb and Lando showed how do you act to avoid a crash, avoided, and therefore no penalty. But they paid with their places. So looks fair."

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4. Posted by The stogie, 10/07/2020 16:56

"I would suggest that the two penalties he got last week were NOT justified. A similar incident by 'others' a few laps after his race penalty resulted in 'No Action Taken'!! Once again the 'stewards' are consistently inconsistent!!"

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5. Posted by Wokingchap, 10/07/2020 12:39

""I continue to stay focused, as I was before, still focused on both trying to fight and win this championship, but also fighting for equal rights."

So that's a distraction then....imo."

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