It seems an Australian transport minister has voiced his opinion on Lewis Hamilton’s “hoongate” stunt in last weekends Grand Pirx. Leaving the circuit on Friday after testing, Hamilton apparently was driving very aggressively spinning his the wheels on his Mercedes garnering the attention of local police who impounded his car.
We, at F1B, were wondering if a burnout warranted impounding a car and thought the laws seemed a tad draconian for the crime. As Americans, we have laws against excessive wheel-spin and dangerous driving but it normally doesn’t see your car impounded. Things were only amplified by the fact that it was Lewis Hamilton and it seems the Australians made hay with that fact.
The incident has caught the attention and raised the ire of Tim Pallas, the roads minister for the state of Victoria. In an interview for radio in which he was promoting a new campaign called ‘Don’t be a Dickhead”, Pallas suggested that Hamilton was a “dickhead”.
“He’s certainly a very silly young man, quite frankly,” Pallas said.
“Come on, you’re the one who’s using the language. Is he a dickhead?” the host pressed.
“Well, yes OK, I’ll say it, he’s a dickhead.”
It also seems that Australian driver Mark Webber feels the same about the Hoon laws in his native country suggesting that they have become a “nanny state”:
“It’s certainly changed since I left here — it pisses me off coming back here, to be honest,” Webber was quoted as saying following a question about Hamilton’s driving offence.
“It’s a great country but we’ve got to be responsible for our actions, and it’s certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do.”
Mr. Pallas was not about to sit still for that and seeing a chance to attach himself to something much bigger than his pay grade, he said:
“I draw the line at Mark, because I think what Mark Webber has done has been totally irresponsible, but he didn’t display the behaviour that Lewis Hamilton did, and that was put people’s lives at risk,” he added.
Because ultimately sharing your opinion and exercising your right to criticize something you feel is over the top is “irresponsible”. Chances are, Mr. Pallas’s drive to work this morning “put people’s lives at risk”.
Color me reactionary but running a public campaign using profanity, such as “Dickhead”, to be cheeky is about as irresponsible as it gets. Mr. Pallas would do well to leave his comments regarding Hamilton and Webber at home and perhaps leave the world of politics until such time as he can raise his campaign to something more mature. What a “dickhead”!
