Lewis Hamilton is disappointed with the progress Formula 1 has made in creating pathways for ethnic minorities to enter the sport. The seven-time world champion believes there is “still a long way to go” before the sport meets its diversity goals after noticing a worrying lack of it in a recent Mercedes team photo.
F1 introduced plans to improve diversity and inclusion in the sport as part of their ‘We Race as One’ campaign in 2020, however, a report from the Hamilton Commission estimates that less than 1 per cent of the workforce in Formula 1 comes from Black or other minority ethnic backgrounds.
“It’s been a long process that started really here in 2019,” said Hamilton. “I’m not going to lie we did a team photo, I was looking and I’m like ‘Damn, we still have so much work to do’ there is three people of colour [in the photo]. There are a lot more [in the background], but that needs to shift.
“If I contrast that to 2019 I’m going to be pretty sure that it’s not moved anywhere near as much as it should have. So the challenge is going see how we shift that.
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Hamilton has been working hard behind the scenes to bring about change at a grassroots level. He and Mercedes launched the Ignite initiative in July 2021, which provides grants for individuals from minority backgrounds to pursue careers in motorsports.
“The work that I’m doing is really targeting kids and creating a future pipeline,” Hamilton added. “It starts from grassroots. It’s been really great to see the team finally coming together and starting to see that we’re starting to have real impact.
“It makes me really proud, we were in Austin and we had the young women come and in UK we had a real diverse group of kids come.
“It was really cool to be in a position to open up the door for these kids to see what is possible, spark interest and create dreams that they perhaps never thought that were possible. So I’m excited for the future, it’s just a long slog.”
