F1 photographer Kym Illman has offered a defence for Lewis Hamilton after the seven-time world champion received heaps of backlash off the back of an image from the Belgian Grand Prix, in which Mercedes press officer Charlotte Davies was pictured holding an umbrella over the Briton’s head.
The image was posted to Illman’s Instagram page on Friday ahead of the opening action of the weekend at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, with the renowned photographer snapping the pair on their walk through the rain back to the TV and media pen in the paddock.
While Illman’s audience of over 200,000 Instagram followers regularly interacts with his content, this post attracted particular intrigue. The post has received over 40,000 likes and over 450 comments, while most of the account’s posts only tend to see a few dozen commenters.
“About a third of the comments were absolutely savaging Lewis,” Illman stated in a video address to his 273.2k TikTok followers. He then went on to detail some of the abusive comments levelled at the British driver with several fans criticising the 38-year-old for not holding his own umbrella.
“Who is holding the umbrella? Well, that’s Charlotte Davies,” he explained. “And her role is press officer at Mercedes, so she has to accompany Lewis to a lot of the media commitments. Do you think this is people not liking Lewis, or is that people just don’t like women holding umbrellas for men?”
Illman went on to share the hypocrisy among F1 fans’ attitudes towards the image of Hamilton and Davies by showcasing photographs of a host of other F1 drivers receiving similar umbrella-related assistance from their respective press officers.
“Now all of these women I’ve featured here are working for the team,” Illman continued. “It’s their job to accompany the driver. They are paid money to do this.”
The popular F1 photographer ended his defence of Hamilton by showing his followers evidence of the legendary Brit returning the favour, holding up an umbrella to shelter former trainer and close friend Angela Cullen from the rain.
He concluded: “Is this the first time a woman’s held his umbrella? No. Angela used to do it quite often, but would he ever carry an umbrella for a woman? Yes. Here he is (image shown of Hamilton and Cullen) in Turkey, holding the umbrella for Angela.”
