Right, been thinking about the Mazepin kneeling situation and think it calls for a thread. Please read to the end.

As anyone who is aware of Russian history knows, May 9 is a big commemoration for Russians - equal to, if not more important, than Armistices Day in https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇬🇧" title="Flagge des Vereinigten Königreiches" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge des Vereinigten Königreiches">. It is thus unsurprising that a Russian driver would want to mark it, just like the British teams paid tribute to Prince Philip.

However, what I, and many other people, would raise issue with is him using the anti-racism part of the pre-race ceremonies to mark something completely unrelated. It feels disrespectful to the cause of #WeRaceAsOne, especially as he’s not done anything else to support it.

Therefore, I think the issue with what Mazepin did is less about the actual act, but more about the timing. If he had chosen to kneel to commemorate May 9 at another time, outside of the anti-racism gesture, there wouldn’t be any need for controversy.

But by choosing to kneel for a different, albeit still worthy, cause during the dedicated anti-racism commemoration just seems a bit wrong. He could have found an alternative way of paying tribute - like a lot of the British teams do when a race falls on Remembrance Sunday.

Anyway, that’s my take, feel free to disagree strongly or agree. END OF THREAD