Donald Trump hinted at his support for one particular F1 team and driver at the Miami Grand Prix earlier this year, while US election rival Kamala Harris is also a fan of the sport
US presidential candidate Kamala Harris has revealed her support for Lewis Hamilton – but election rival Donald Trump’s Formula 1 loyalties seem to lie elsewhere.
F1 has become extremely popular across the Atlantic in recent years, thanks in part to the success of the Netflix Drive to Survive series among viewers in the USA. And Harris, the current vice president, seems to have been caught up in the hype.
Speaking to experienced broadcaster Howard Stern on Sirius XM, the Democratic presidential candidate said of the sport: “It’s so good – we love it, our whole family does.”
Asked by the host if it was “a campaign thing,” Harris was taken aback and replied: “Oh, god no! I haven’t been able to watch it a lot recently, because I am campaigning. Also, depending on where they are driving, the time of day.”
Harris was then asked who her favourite driver is and, without hesitation, she replied: “Lewis Hamilton, of course.” Stern then said he doesn’t “even know who that is”, to which Harris said: “He’s leaving Mercedes,” and told the interviewer: “You should see it, you might get hooked, it’s good stuff.”
Harris’ election rival Trump has been spotted at F1 event in the past, most recently at the Miami Grand Prix earlier this year. The former president was a guest in the McLaren team garage and said he “endorsed” Lando Norris, who went on to win the race.
Trump was seen in conversation with American team CEO Zak Brown and he also spoke directly with Norris. McLaren were criticised for welcoming the divisive figure into their garage and said in a statement: “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.”
Norris was also slammed after he said he had “a lot of respect” for Trump as he spoke after winning the race. 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.”
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