Thinking out loud: Podium Celebrations in F1

Welcome to a new section of Frize Feed called 'Thinking out loud', a topic where I express my opinions over recent events. I'm going to start of this instalment with the recent uproar caused by Lewis Hamilton spraying a hostess in the face on the podium after the Chinese Grand Prix.

To kick things off, the Daily Mail is the source of this story. For anyone outside the UK wondering what the Daily Mail is, it is a tabloid newspaper which has little no credibility, especially when it comes to celebrity gossip. So you may be thinking "Why are you covering a non-story in the first place, shouldn't you ignore it and move on?" I reckon it is more fun to point out how heavily flawed the article is with a blog post, so here it goes.

The Daily Fail Mail 'newspaper' is widely regarded as a racist organisation, so it is no surprise they should make a black sports personality look bad. So let's take the so-called controversy caused by Lewis Hamilton on the podium last weekend. For some reason, this has been labelled as sexist and campaign groups have ordered the two-time world champion to apologise to the hostess, because the physical body language determines the woman is not enjoying being sprayed in the face.

The first flaw with that argument is that if the woman is standing on the podium during the champagne showers, she knows there is a risk of being on the receiving end of the bottle's nozzle. I cannot imagine why she would be unhappy if she was to get wet in the first place. Secondly, we haven't even heard a word from the victim, for all we know she may have actually found the scenario amusing! She hasn't spoken to the media about her displeasure so there is no point assuming she was bullied.

Another thing is that other F1 drivers have sprayed the hostesses on the podium and tabloid journalists never rushed to conclusions about how they may have felt bullied. Vettel and Alonso have done it a number of times and the images show the mutiple world champions spraying three hostesses at once. The now-retired Australian driver Mark Webber is no stranger to this action, and this funny gif gives it a more suggestive look.

So when Lewis Hamilton does the same thing, why is it turned into such a big issue? In my view, no harm was done if the hostess didn't report any negative emotions to the media. Arguing with the Daily Mail and its subscribers is like talking to a brick wall (to be fair, a brick wall probably has a higher IQ), but I hope the more intelligent people in society will see this as a non-issue.

UPDATE: The model has spoken out about 'spraygate' and has told local media that the scenario was no big deal. As the saying goes, this accusation was making a mountain out of a molehill.