Hamilton calls for better trophies

As Formula One returns to Silverstone, British Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton has called on F1 to improve the winners trophies.

Over the years the podium ceremony has changed in Formula One, winners used to be awarded wreaths but this tradition has long gone in F1, although is kept in America.

The spraying of champagne and lifting a trophy is pretty timeless, but in modern day Formula One the trophy has often become a chance to just advertise a sponsor.

In other sports the winners trophy is iconic, everyone in motor sport knows what the trophy looks like for the winner of the Indy 500.

Everyone football knows what the FA Cup looks like, everyone in tennis knows what the Wimbledon trophy looks like and so on and so on.

But in Formula One there are very few iconic trophies and this is because they are being dumped in favour of sponsored versions.

The 2014 Formula One British Grand Prix was a casing point. Lewis Hamilton won his home race, a special occasion for any driver and he was awarded with a flimsy bit of red plastic with thanks from Santander.

The Brit was not impressed and immediately asked ‘Where’s the gold trophy?’

He eventually got hold of the gold trophy and proudly paraded it in front of the worlds media.

Hamilton has even taken up his complaints with Bernie Ecclestone, however with the Austrian Grand Prix handing out a wooden carved design it appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

‘We just need to make better trophies – it’s shocking how bad the trophies are,’ Hamilton told The Daily Telegraph.

‘at the beginning of my Formula 1 career, the trophies were really good. But now they are just terrible, man. They are so bad. I told Bernie and he got the trophy guy in the room and I just said, ‘you know’.’

Speaking about the British Grand Prix gold trophy Hamilton added: ‘That is the only trophy there is for Silverstone, Last year, they gave me this plastic thing and I’m like, ‘This is not the trophy, it’s like a GP2 trophy, not the Formula 1 trophy.’

‘The gold one is really special. It would be great if each country had a real trophy like that, with character that grew over the years because of the history. I don’t know why they don’t make them the same any more.’