It was a dark day for Formula One racing on Saturday when verbal attacks launched at McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton forced track officials to eject fans from the Barcelona circuit and close the gates. The abusive fans of Fernando Alonso, reportedly believing their hero had been treated unfairly by McLaren last year, took their frustration to xenophobic depths by shouting racist slurs at Hamilton. (We won't go into details, but the exact language can be found at the links below.)
In addition to ejecting the abusive fans from the premises, track officials responded by putting up additional barriers around the McLaren garage and placing extra security guards in the grandstands. The FIA, however, unsatisfied with the reaction of officials at the Circuit de Catalunya, threatened unspecified sanctions if the incident were repeated. While we certainly agree that this sort of behavior cannot be tolerated, we're not sure that the track officials or the Spanish motorsports associations are the ones to blame.
[Sources: Autosport and F1-Live, Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Andy @ Feb 4th 2008 9:39AM
You stay classy, Spain.
blacktip007 @ Feb 4th 2008 9:40AM
This behavior is nothing new in Espania..but a few rouge fans and a laz'e fair attituted by spanish authorities and a very "colorful" press have allowed this to grow to its current state. FIA can and should show Spanish fans and any other venue that this is not the kind of face the sport needs... Its bad enough that car owners may share these feelings. Look and soccer and other sports and the issues they have had to deal with. Nip it now. How you feel about people outside your race is your own opinion... but know this...there is a price to pay for voicing.
Seoultrain @ Feb 4th 2008 11:13AM
laissez-faire?
Benfolio @ Feb 4th 2008 9:47AM
Pfft, this kind of thing would NEVER happen in NASCAR.
Seoultrain @ Feb 4th 2008 11:12AM
lol, hell yeah! That's why Americans are the greatest country in the world!
VP @ Feb 4th 2008 9:53AM
Whenever there is a NASCAR post on this site, we are reminded by the wine & cheese crowd as to how sophisticated there are. Not so progressive ehhh?
Hamud @ Feb 4th 2008 9:53AM
Idiots...
James @ Feb 4th 2008 9:59AM
Not every fan of track racing likes wine. Some of us like fancy beer!
What's funny is that while there is racism amongst NASCAR fans, they have at least learned to make it quiet racism. Europeans just speak their mind more often.
Neither has a place in any sport
Pinhead @ Feb 4th 2008 10:01AM
They do the same thing to every black soccer player that steps into the barcelona stadium, they even berate their own non-white players. Barcelona has gotten fined more then a few times for it happening.
Shawn @ Feb 4th 2008 10:01AM
Try going to a soccer game in Europe...Talk about wide open and wide spread racism.
Rafa @ Feb 4th 2008 10:06AM
As a spaniard, I feel ashamed by this. Unfortunately, many of these people are used to soccer, where this crap might be considered normal. It´s sad to see that we are starting to see the same thing in Formula 1. It didn´t happen in the other two spanish circuits where they were testing last month, I wonder what´s going on in Barcelona.
WolfgangNC @ Feb 4th 2008 10:10AM
Seriously, I believe F1 is the future NASCAR! They have the engine development freeze, they are developing lower performance engines and chassis and now racism. If your not from the states, you need to come over here and look in the R&B, Rapper, Gangsta stores you'll see plenty of NASCAR coats and merchandise there. Yeah, NASCAR fans are the ignorant ones, right?
tpp @ Feb 4th 2008 10:12AM
To be fair, it's not that unheard of in England either.
However, I don't find it surprising at all that Alonso's fans are douchebags. They're cheering for the biggest douche in the racing series, after all.
Franz @ Feb 4th 2008 1:23PM
Ditto. Racist Spanish pricks.
Mobius_1 @ Feb 4th 2008 10:32AM
At least it proves he's good enough to be hated by people, I mean, no one hates Jenson Button right?
Go Lewis and prove them wrong
dewfish @ Feb 4th 2008 10:44AM
I agree with this wholeheartedly. As a NASCAR fan, i listen to people constantly put down NASCAR on this site. Every fan of the sport is portrayed as an unintelligent, backwoods bigot. Now we see the true colors of the so-called "intelligent" fans of "real racing".
Jerk Face @ Feb 4th 2008 10:49AM
That comment is full of Win.
tpp @ Feb 4th 2008 10:50AM
@dewfish, Ah, yes, because all F1 fans are Spanish and racists, right? Don't be stupid.
Couple of things.
F1 fans in Spain are NEW to the sport. They are NOT by any means a true representation of F1 fans.
F1 fans are an extremely diverse group of people because of the international and worldwide nature of the series. It is impossible to pinpoint a "typical" F1 fan. There is no such thing.
Thirdly, I find it very interesting that you would bring up Nascar in your comment. I don't think the incident has anything to do with Nascar. I believe what you're doing is called projecting.
John @ Feb 4th 2008 11:03AM
I've never heard racial slurs yelled at any sporting events I've attended here in the US. A lot of bad language, yes, but not racial.
tekdemon @ Feb 14th 2008 3:48PM
Europeans can be racist too, although it does vary depending on the region. That said, even in Amsterdam I heard someone use the n-word in a conversation about music, and Amsterdam is obviously a pretty progressive place.
That said, most people are obviously not racist idiots, but my guess is that the F1 racing fans in question here are the same idiots that start racist soccer riots. You have to realize that racist groups purposely travel to soccer games to start sh*t in Europe. That's why you'll see UK skinheads starting riots in Spain, etc.
Anyways, obviously F1 is clamping down pretty hard to stop it from becoming associated with racist idiots. But just because there are racist idiots who went to an F1 event in Spain doesn't mean that it's ok for there to be racist idiots at NASCAR now. It's totally unacceptable for any sort of sport.
I haven't heard a slur at a sporting event in the US either, but then again I've only really gone to events in places where being a racist idiot would likely get you beaten up. But then again I also remember when John Rocker more than made up for the lack of bigotry in baseball by spewing more than enough racist BS for the whole league, so US sports isn't entirely untained by racist idiots.