Kamala Harris has rejected claims that her love for Formula One is a ‘campaign thing’ after sharing her support for Lewis Hamilton.
The US vice-president and Democratic Party presidential nominee revealed she’s a fan of F1 ahead of the United States Grand Prix.
Kamala Harris has revealed her passion for F1 and love of Lewis HamiltonGetty
Motorsport’s elite has finally seemed to have cracked America in recent years, thanks, in part, to Netflix sensation Drive to Survive.
USA now have three tracks on the 2024 grid, with the next round of the season taking place at the Circuit of the Americas this month.
Speaking on a Howard Stern broadcast, Harris explained: “It’s so good. We love it. Our whole family does.”
The US Grand Prix is set to take place in Austin, Texas – a state Republicans have carried in each of the last 11 presidential elections.
The last Democrat to win the ‘Lone Star State’ was Jimmy Carter in 1976, with Donald Trump carrying the torch in 2016 and 2020.
This year’s F1 return to Texas is on October 20, a mere 16 days before the 2024 United States presidential election.
However, Harris hit back at jibes that her newfound love of car racing was a “campaign thing”, saying: “No. God no! No.
“Actually, I haven’t been able to watch a lot lately because I am campaigning because you know depending on where they’re driving, the time of day, you’ve got to wake up early.”
Harris was then quizzed on who her favourite F1 driver was and replied: “Lewis Hamilton, of course.”
Stern then claimed he didn’t know who the seven-time world champion was, prompting Harris to continue: “Ah, he’s leaving Mercedes… you don’t know… you don’t watch Formula One? Once you start… you should see it, you might get hooked.”
Trump took credit for Norris’ first race win after he ‘endorsed’ McLarenGetty
In addition to being crowned talkSPORT’s number one driver of all time, Hamilton regularly uses his platform to discuss topical issues.
Hamilton is the first and – to date – only black F1 driver and has faced racist abuse and financial struggles in his bid to reach the top.
He has also used his platform to champion human and animal rights activity, which included wearing a rainbow helmet at Grands Prix held in Qatar to support the LGBTQ+ community.
The 39-year-old founded a charity ‘Mission 44’, to help people from a wider range of backgrounds enter motorsport and regularly condemns the lack of gender diversity in F1 as well.
It is yet to be revealed whether Harris will attend the race in Texas, while election rival Trump has been spotted in the F1 paddock before.
Trump was a guest in the McLaren garage at the Miami GP and later said he ‘endorsed’ Lando Norris, who went on to win the race.
Hamilton was the only driver to wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt in 2020AFP or licensors
He has also raced with a rainbow flag in countries where homosexual acts are illegalGetty
The Republican nominee was seen in conversation with American CEO Zak Brown, as well as Hamilton’s British compatriot Norris.
The latter won his first-ever F1 race in Miami and faced criticism from his fans for revealing he has ‘a lot of respect’ for Trump.
The Brit said: “I didn’t see him in the garage to be honest, I was busy prepping for the race. But he saw me after and he came up to congratulate me, so I guess an honour, because whenever you have someone like this, it has to be an honour for you – for them to come up to you, to take time out of their life to pay their respect for what you’ve done.
“He said he was my lucky charm because it was my win, so I don’t know if he’s going to come to more races now. But yeah, there’s a lot of special people, cool people that have been here this weekend.
“Donald is someone that you’ve got to have a lot of respect for, in many ways, and for anyone like that who acknowledges what you can go out and do, and acknowledges the work ethic that goes into things, you’ve got to be thankful for that, and I was. So, yeah. Cool moment, and that’s all.”
Trump was welcomed by McLaren’s American CEO Zak BrownGetty
The British-based team responded to criticism of hosting the former presidentAFP
McLaren also came under fire at the time for welcoming Trump into their garage and were forced to release a statement in response.
It read: “McLaren is a non-political organisation however we recognise and respect the office of President of the United States.
“So when the request was made to visit our garage on race day we accepted alongside the president of the FIA and the CEOs of Liberty Media and Formula 1.
“We were honoured that McLaren Racing was chosen as the representative of F1 which gave us the opportunity to showcase the world class engineering that we bring to motorsport.”
