Lewis Hamilton has neve shied away from highlighting his concerns about diversity in F1. He has been a huge advocate of equal rights, and has called for inclusion of people from different backgrounds in the sport, over the last few years.
In an interview with Forbes, Hamilton talks about how much F1 has changed in terms of inclusion and diversity, but also pointed out how they can do better. Hamilton admits that he has seen a lot of changes over the last few years, and sees more people of color in various F1 ranks today.
Earlier, he recalls how he found himself to be the only person of color in his team. As he became more successful in F1, he made it a point to work hard towards promoting diversity and creating opportunities for people from different backgrounds. Today, even though there is a ‘long way to go’, Hamilton is proud of the changes he and his team incorporated.
“I am really, really proud of what we have done as a team,” the 38-year-old said. “I’ve held difficult conversations with my teammates over the last few years. But before that, I would always ask, ‘Why am I the only person of color in the room?'”
Lewis Hamilton feels Mercedes have contributed more towards diversity than any other team
Hamilton has worked hard towards making F1 more inclusive and accessible to people from different communities and he started with Mercedes. According to him, no other team in F1 has worked as hard as them when it coms to social causes.
Today, Hamilton sees plenty of women and people from different backgrounds working together at Brackley, and it is something he is genuinely proud of. To support Hamilton’s stance towards the Black Lives Matter movement, Mercedes even introduced an all black livery for their 2020 car, which became extremely popular.
Lot more left to achieve, says Hamilton
Keeping all this progress in mind, Hamilton also insists that there is a lot more left to achieve. He feels that there aren’t enough people of color or women occupying higher ranks within F1, and that is something he wants to change in the coming years.
“What you’ll see, probably across a lot of organizations is, the higher you go up in the tier, the less women and people of color you find,” he said. “So I’m trying to continue to have difficult conversations with people who say, ‘Oh, it’s been done.’ My reply to that is, ‘No, we need to do more.’”
