Lewis Hamilton and the Problem of Cognitive Dissonance

On Sunday the 7th of July, Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line first at Silverstone, winning this year’s British Grand Prix. It was his first Formula 1 victory since 2021 and by his own admission, it was an emotional moment. Tears streamed down his face in front of his adoring home crowd who watched as he proudly draped the Union Jack across his shoulders and celebrated the win.
Witnessing Hamilton’s quite remarkable decision making that ultimately led to his victory, it was impossible not to notice the branding that dominated the track – the words “Qatar Airways” emblazoned in white on a maroon background throughout. Last year, the airline became the official global partner and airline of F1, signing a five-year deal that Stefano Domenicali, F1 president, has described as a “perfect match”, given the brands’ shared commitment to “delivering the best experiences to our fans and customers”. Watching Hamilton lift the trophy against a backdrop branded with the Qatar Airways logo, I could not help but be struck by the moral hypocrisy of it all.
As F1’s first and, to date, only black driver, Hamilton has been vocal about the need for more racial inclusion in motorsport and has earned a reputation as a civil rights activist more generally, famously taking the knee on the grid during his races in 2020 in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. At the start of the 2021 season, F1 announced that drivers would be allowed to do so again that season to demonstrate their opposition to racism, as part of a larger effort to promote “sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and community” in motorsport.
Apparently, neither Hamilton nor F1 have any trouble reconciling this stance with the fact that Sunday’s race was sponsored by a country with a deplorable human rights record. This was foregrounded in the lead-up to the 2022 Qatar Football World Cup, when thousands of migrant workers died because of the gruelling working conditions non-nationals endure in the country. In Qatar, foundational democratic principles such as freedom of expression and association and freedom of the press are also severely constricted, while discriminatory laws explicitly limit the civil liberties of women, particular religious groups and the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, in its annual assessment of people’s access to political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House allocated Qatar a score of just 25 out of 100, designating it “not free”.
It was in 1936 that the international community first contemplated the ethical implications of supporting sports events hosted by repressive regimes during what became known as the Nazi Olympics in Berlin. But the games nonetheless went ahead, setting a precedent that continues today. The same moral ambivalence is apparent in Aramco’s long-term F1 sponsorship, Saudi Arabia’s financing of the 2023 LIV golf tournament, and China’s hosting of the 2022 Olympics.
What is most troubling, however, is that this is part of a much more pervasive problem, which is the tacit, society-wide acceptance of an ever-worsening form of mass cognitive dissonance. Today, the world exists in a state of obvious moral contradiction, holding one set of beliefs embedded in our liberal democratic constitutions and laws, while simultaneously happily partnering with authoritarian regimes, who hold entirely different beliefs, in diametric opposition to our freedoms. Hamilton taking the knee is part of a long circuitous journey towards the recognition of dignity. Four years later, he wins the Qatar Airways British Grand Prix, and no one seems to notice the irony. This problem of myopia is not only true in sport, but in business and geopolitics as well.
As one recent example, a private equity firm headed by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, accepted a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Kushner ardently defended the business deal and described the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as “a visionary leader”. This sentiment has been echoed by many politicians, who have praised the prince for his progressiveness, especially as it pertains to Saudi Arabia’s commitment to climate change mitigation. The fact that the country’s wealth is founded entirely on the continued extraction and sale of fossil fuels is overlooked with absurd ease.
This is also the same prince who has centralised control of major national assets and forcefully quelled criticism of the state among his people, who imprisoned hundreds of Saudi royals in a hotel in 2017 until they agreed to transfer their money to him, apparently to provide financing for Neom, his sustainability-focused mega-infrastructure project. And he is the same man that US intelligence has all but confirmed ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Yet this did not stop former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson from going, cap in hand, to beg for oil from Saudi Arabia in 2022, just days after the prince ordered a mass execution of 81 so-called dissidents, nor did it prevent US president Joe Biden from fist-bumping him before a meeting that same year. The veneer of Saudi Arabia’s climate change goals and sports sponsorship has clearly been enough to save the country from reproach.
This next statement will not make me popular, but I would argue that Lewis Hamilton could do more good for the world had he sanctioned the British Grand Prix by not participating. Merely by watching the race, which I guiltily did, I inadvertently worsened a problem that is growing more severe because of our passive acceptance of it. When JD Vance, Trumps’ pick for vice president, rails against Wall Street, of which he was recently a part having come out of a venture capital firm into politics, and says of Trump, “we need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business”, as he did two days ago at the Republican National Convention, then we should not complain at the mind-bending hypocrisy of it, because we do leave the TV on, and carry on watching the Dakar, and the golf, and the F1.
By David Buckham
Buckham is founder and CEO of Johannesburg-based international management consultancy Monocle Solutions.