Sky Sports F1 presenter Naomi Schiff is known for her broadcasting stint nowadays but a few know that she was a racer herself. Having represented South Africa at the Karting World Championship for four years, Schiff has also raced in several Formula Renault series and GT racing series across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
She recently did a Q&A session on her Instagram in which, one user asked her about who was her source of inspiration growing up. It was a straightforward answer for Schiff, as she named Lewis Hamilton.
“The year I started racing was the same year Lewis had his debut season in F1 [2007]. So he very quickly became my role model,” she stated the coincidental connection between them.
Back in 2007, Hamilton wasn’t the superstar he is today. Still, the kind of performances he put up in his rookie and sophomore seasons at McLaren inspired many youngsters.
Lewis Hamilton was asked about his support for Sky reporter Naomi Schiff pic.twitter.com/ZZCSRihccp
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) June 17, 2022
18 years later, the seven-time world champion is still fighting to stay competitive in F1. He will be starting a new stint with Ferrari in 2025, something he is keenly looking forward to. Hamilton knows that this could be the final chapter of his F1 career. So, he wishes to end it on a high by winning a championship with the Scuderia.
Naomi, on the other hand, has long quit her racing career after failing to secure sponsors during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She last raced in the now-defunct W Series, following which she made the jump to the broadcasting industry in F1.
Since 2022, Schiff has been with the Sky Sports F1 team as a presenter. She also got the chance to host several teams’ car launch events, including Mercedes’ launch of the W13 in 2022. “Full circle to be able to work alongside him [Hamilton] and all the other incredible F1 drivers on the grid,” she said about the same.
Schiff and Hamilton’s talk about being bi-racial in motorsports
Another sentimental connection between Hamilton and Schiff is that both of them are of mixed race. The two spoke about it in a conversation in June 2023, where Hamilton expressed openly about his experiences of being a bi-racial athlete and the struggles he faced, rising through the ranks to fit into the racing world.
Hamilton’s mother is white and his father is black. Meanwhile, Schiff’s father is white and her mother is black. Therefore, she resonated a lot with what Hamilton was trying to say about struggling to fit into the world of motor racing due to their mixed race.
“I always identified as mixed-race. I think it’s easy to say you are mixed race. At the same time, as you said, there is colorism, and often I feel like, I could never identify as white, but I am given the black experience,” she said.
Hamilton also highlighted how he has experienced the “different undertones” in people’s behavior towards him — something he could not speak about openly even with his family until recent years. However, he feels that there has been a ‘transition’ in society toward people of color, be it black or bi-racial.
