A Taiwanese team participating in the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France was asked to remove the national flag from their car before the start of the race on Saturday, the team owner said.
At the request of the organizers, the national flag was replaced with the “Chinese Taipei” flag which Taiwan uses in international sports events such as the Olympic Games, team owner Morris Chen’s (陳漢承) company HubAuto Corp said.
The organizers of the race did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Photo: AP
Chen, who was in France with the team, did not say why the organizers called for the change, the company said.
The team on Friday participated in the qualifying round with the national flag on the car’s body, as it did last year, it said.
The HubAuto Racing team was in pole position for the 89th edition of the race, after advancing in the qualifying round.
The organizers’ request to remove the flag could be due to pressure from Beijing, as Wan Heping (萬和平) of China is the vice president for sports at the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), which governs many auto racing events, including Le Mans, Taiwan-based Web site F-1 Auto Racing said.
The Taiwanese team, which competed in last year’s race with a Ferrari, made its second Le Mans appearance this year with a Porsche 911 RSR-19, after moving up to GTE Pro from last year’s GTE Amateur rank.
Maxime Martin and Dries Vanthoor of Belgium, and Alvaro Parente of Portugal drove the team’s car. They retired after 227 laps.
China’s Tencent Video has refused to broadcast Le Mans this year, without providing a reason.
Chinese Internet users have speculated that the decision could be aimed at preventing Chinese viewers from seeing Taiwan’s national flag during the race.
Additional reporting by AFP
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