Stephen A Smith mixes up Lewis Hamilton and Denny | Sports News

Stephen A Smith generated a recent wave of backlash from the motorsports neighborhood for seemingly complicated 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin with Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton.

Smith — whether or not deliberately or not — additional stoked his ongoing feud with NASCAR trustworthy during a follow-up episode of his SiriusXM show. While acknowledging that he isn’t an avid supporter of the Cup Series, the 58-year-old mentioned: “I don’t follow NASCAR. I don’t watch it.

“I only visited Michael Jordan’s facility … because of him and Hamilton, and stuff like that, in North Carolina a little over a year ago or so. I certainly root for him, and I root for them.”

Taking to social media, droves of viewers rapidly identified that Smith blended up Hamilton and Hamlin, who based 23XI in 2020 alongside NBA legend Michael Jordan and his longtime business associate Curtis Polk.

“This dude knows nothing about motorsports and he is trying to make things seem factual,” one X person wrote, with one other including: “If he doesn’t watch it and can’t get names of drivers right, maybe just maybe he shouldn’t be talking about it.” A third requested: “Why you speaking on something you know nothing about @stephenasmith?”

Smith wasn’t precisely on the great aspect of NASCAR followers previous to his on-air mistake concerning Hamilton. Less than one week earlier, the ‘First Take’ host clapped back at a caller who urged that Richard Petty was one of the best athletes of all-time in relation to longevity.

Though ‘The King’ gained his seventh and last Cup Series championship on the ripe age of 42, Smith insisted that he didn’t qualify as an athlete. “Come on, man. That don’t count. You driving a car,” he mentioned. “I’m being honest, it’s a great sport. But come on, bro. Getting behind the wheel of a car is not the same.”

Upon catching wind of Smith’s remarks, Hamlin argued that NASCAR drivers are athletes given the rigorous training and physical demands that come with piloting a race car. “NASCAR drivers are athletes. I have seen many NASCAR drivers do very unathletic things outside of a race car. But that’s not what their bodies are trained to do,” Hamlin mentioned on a current episode of his ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast.

“When you train for a specific sport for most of your life, your body gets trained to be able to do that. Why I say what we do is athletic is that [others] would never be able to sit in that car this weekend in Talladega, the least physically demanding racetrack we go to by quite a ways, and be able to sit in that car and do what we do. Turn that wheel, sit in that heat, maintain the g-force. Your bodies are not trained to do that,” Hamlin defined. “The strength and the stamina is the part of that — no casual person would be able to do our jobs.”

In the top, Hamlin believed that preventing Smith online wasn’t well worth the power. “I’m not going to be the person that gets up in arms on social media because Stephen A is saying this,” he concluded. “The guy has hot takes every day. Who cares? Are you offended? Stop being so f—— offended. Have some thick skin.”