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WHY HAMILTON SHOULDN’T BE KNIGHTED – YET

Why Lewis Hamilton Shouldn't Be Knighted - Yet - Photo: LAT

By Bruce Williams

Why Lewis Hamilton Shouldn't Be Knighted - Yet - Photo: LAT

Why Lewis Hamilton Shouldn’t Be Knighted – Yet – Photo: LAT

Calls for Lewis Hamilton’s immediate knighthood are inappropriate and misguided.

COMMENT By MARK FOGARTY

Being appointed a knight of the realm in Britain is a privilege, not a right, no matter your achievements.

He should not expect to be going to Buckingham Palace next year to hear Queen Elizabeth say “Arise, Sir Lewis” after she has tapped him on each shoulder with a sword.

Hamilton may deserve the ultimate UK honour for his record-equalling seventh Formula 1 world title – and other F1 records – but there should be no expectation to earn it immediately.

He is, without doubt, the best F1 driver of his generation and one of the all-time greats. He is also divisive and not universally popular.

Hamilton’s stance on racism and his concern for the environment, contrasted by his A-list lifestyle, polarise opinion.

He is a new-age driver for a new age. His ever-broadening interests should offset the tedium of his domination.

Hamilton is a life-living personality like James Hunt, just in a very different way.

Hunt, in the mid’70s, was a high-flying playboy. He was what we all wanted to be back then.

Hamilton is the 21st century version. Dedicated, but not limited to, racing. He has a full life away from the track – fashion, entertainment, fun.

He is, actually, a great advertisement for how sports stars can be. Mega-rich with a compassion for normal people, from where he came.

The idea of a knighthood would both thrill and appal Hamilton, a coloured kid in a white person’s world.

He overcame the race barrier to set an example for minorities everywhere, adding to Tiger Woods’ breakthrough.

He will most likely become Sir Lewis Hamilton in the future, but it is not guaranteed. Not all British F1 world champions have been knighted.

British sports stars are rarely dubbed by the Queen before they retire.

Usually, they receive lesser honorifics while still active.

And none of them, especially a knighthood, is actually awarded by the reigning monarch despite being called Queen’s honours.

They are decided by the British government based on a complex system of nomination and approval.

The most important are MBE (Member of the British Empire), OBE (Officer of the British Empire), CBE (Commander of the British Empire) and, finally, KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

The latter means you get to be addressed as Sir for a man and Dame for a woman.

Before honours pedants get up in arms, that is a simplified summary to make a point.

Knighthoods are bestowed in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours and mid-year Queen’s Birthday Honours

British F1 world champions not knighted were Mike Hawthorn, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, John Surtees, James Hunt, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jenson Button.

Hawthorn, Clark and Hill are omissions because knighthoods are not awarded posthumously.

Why Surtees – the only two- and-four-wheel world championship – missed out remains a mystery. Hunt, given his debauched lifestyle during his F1 career, not so much…

Stirling Moss received his knighthood many years after his crash-ended career, as did Jackie Stewart. Allegedly, triple world champion Stewart’s long wait was because he was a tax exile in Switzerland and only got the gong in 2001 after his return to the UK.

Hamilton, along with many of his predecessors, was awarded an MBE after his first world title in 2008.

Other British world motorsport champions like the late Barry Sheene and Colin McRae weren’t knighted (too late now), nor Mike Hailwood, Andy Priaulx, Allan McNish, Anthony Davidson, Mike Conway, Carl Fogarty or Jonathan Rea.

All but McNish, Davidson and Conway have received lesser awards.

Four-time IndyCar champion and triple Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti got an MBE.

Australia’s Jack Brabham was made a knight of the realm before the Whitlam Labor government replaced British honours with Australian awards in the mid-1970s

The late Sir Jack is our only motorsport knight. Alan Jones has an MBE (presumably as a citizen of a Commonwealth nation), while Allan Moffat has an OBE (from when he was still as citizen of Canada).

Not even Peter Brock received a royal assent.

Our Australian awards (AM, AO, etc) are still given out at New Year and Queen’s birthday (E II is still our nominal head of government).

I’m no royalist, so it makes little difference to me whether Hamilton is ever knighted or not.

But as a ground-breaking Brit, he should eventually be acknowledged as one of the UK’s greatest sports persons ever.

There’s just no rush nor reason to knight him now.

Sure, as a person of colour, it would be highly symbolic and politically correct. Which is exactly the reason it shouldn’t be done straight away. It’s called tokenism.

Hamilton would not be the first black British knight – far from it. Famed news presenter Sir Trevor McDonald is among those way ahead of him

Lewis will likely – and rightly – be knighted after he retires from F1 and when his humanitarian efforts are added to the ledger of his achievements.

In the meantime, there is no reason to expect anything more than an interim elevation to CBE as a staging post.

But that would be unusual unless knighthood is somehow deemed unobtainable.

One day, the Queen (or King) will utter those immortal words: “Arise, Sir Lewis.”

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