Sir Lewis Hamilton is at the very top of the motorsport world. I don't particularly buy in to the term "GOAT", but if you do, Lewis must come close to that ruminant moniker. He is a multiple world champion, holds many a Formula 1 record and is one of the brightest stars the sport has ever seen.
With all of that success though – with all of that applied talent, extraordinary hard work and focus, succeeding in a classic rag to riches story – he is still the subject of racism.
Three-time F1 champion Nelson Piquet described Hamilton using the term "neguinho", which means "little black guy" in Portuguese. Plainly the Brazilian belongs to the generation for whom casual or direct racism was acceptable. That generation is literally dying out, but will the language go with it?
I don't think it will. The casual slur, essentially rubberstamped by previous generations as being just "words" has an alarming way of trickling through the generations, especially in sports where the predominant participants are white. Motorsport is precisely that.
This is evidenced by the case of Formula 2 racer Jüri Vips. He has been stood down from his contract as a Red Bull junior driver after uttering a racist term during a live feed of an online gaming session.