Renault’s driver Daniel Ricciardo says that staying quiet on his anti-racism stand, is far much worse than facing any trolls on the social media as a consequence of his actions.
The 31-year-old Australian is fully in support of anti-racism push in Formula 1 and he had shown this by wearing a mask branded ‘equality’ during the Russian grand prix to show his desire to publicize his message. However, as he is openly campaigning against racism, there are a minority who feel that they do not share their views with him, and this leaves the Renault driver in the firing line. Ricciardo makes it clear that he is not expecting everyone to be behind him.
“With the social media stuff, I think in general I try not to read too much because you might get 95 percent of the positive stuff, but it all it takes is that five percent to kind of piss you off,” Ricciardo said. “They’ll always be there. You’re never going to have a 100 percent majority you know. It just doesn’t quite exist unfortunately.”
Daniel Ricciardo also says that his inspiration on the ‘equality’ mask comes from Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, who has displayed many messages in the promotion of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. He is also feeling happy that the world now can openly discuss something that he also felt difficult to talk about, in the recent months.
“Even just talking about Black Lives Matter, and even referencing a black person as a black person, saying these things now out loud, for sure we didn’t really have that much comfort talking about it,” he explained.
“I didn’t have much comfort talking about it at the start of this year. So to start talking about things that you’ve never spoken about before, whether it’s on racism, whether it’s on mental health or any of these subjects, it is a little bit daunting. So you have to be prepared to probably open yourself up for a little bit of criticism, or maybe not 100% positive feedback.
“But again, I think if it’s something that you feel strongly about and you believe in, I don’t see why not.
“I think especially with the racism stuff. A big problem is the silence, and it’s the people that you know are too comfortable in their shell in not speaking up. I think that’s the thing: just encouraging you, if you do have a voice and a positive one, then let it be heard.”
