Sir Lewis Hamilton And Billionaire Toto Wolff Say Diversity Will Be Winning Driver For F-1

Increasing diversity will be key to the success of Mercedes-AMG Petronas and for viewership of Formula 1 racing, the sport’s only Black driver and the team’s owner told attendees at the Forbes’ Iconoclast Summit.

“We want to make sure that we’re champions and we’re pushing and creating that opportunity that could transform the lives of underprivileged kids on the way up,” Sir Lewis Hamilton, who has driven to seven Formula One world championships, said at the June 13 event.

Hamilton has been vocal about the lack of diversity in the sport, leading multiple inclusion efforts to bring in more engineers from ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups. In June 2020, he launched the Hamilton Commission to study and improve the presence and representation of Black people in U.K. motosports.

When the inaugural Hamilton Commission report came out the following year, only about 3% of the Mercedes team’s employees were people of color. “We realized that we’re working against the demographic,” team owner, principal and CEO Toto Wolff said of the diversity within the team and Formula One viewers.

Three years after the report, Wolff revealed, that number has grown to 16%. “When deciding who joins, I’m 100% convinced that this diversity, diversity of culture, of craft, of thinking, is going to make us a better team,” he said.

The eight-time consecutive world champions have struggled since they gained their eighth title in 2021. But the team missed the mark on the new technical regulations and a cost cap introduced for the 2022 season, finishing third in the fight for the racecar constructors’ championship. “We got the physics wrong,” Wolff said of the car’s design. Now, things might be turning around for the Brackley, England-based organization. The team secured its first double podium of the season as its two drivers, Hamilton and George Russell, finished second and third at the Spanish Grand Prix, bringing the team to second place in the constructors’ standings.

As part of its effort to increase diversity, Mercedes launched the Accelerate 25 program in 2020 to ensure that at least 25% of new hires came from underrepresented and underprivileged backgrounds, including female and minority candidates. In the first year, the program exceeded that goal, hiring 38% of applicants from diverse backgrounds.

“That is going to bring up performance,” Wolff added.

Hamilton’s latest venture, dubbed Mission 44, aims to “improve the pipeline of engineers that are getting into motorsport and create more opportunities for people that come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds,” Hamilton said. The organization partnered with UBS to increase funding for nonprofits working to broaden diversity and inclusion in education, and in June announced three organizations that will receive over $350,000 to fund programs to assist Black and under-represented youths.

“We’re on this road to just creating a more inclusive environment,” Hamilton added.

That goal could also improve results for all of Formula One, which has been rapidly gaining popularity outside of Europe.

“We want the sport to be more representative of a room like this, or the outside world at a couple of our races,” Hamilton told summit attendees.

The launch of Netflix’s
NFLX
“Drive To Survive,” a documentary series chronicling Formula One’s world championship, spearheaded the immense growth of the sport in the United States. Its season five premier in April brought in 643,000 viewers, according to data from Nielsen, and 2.58 million watched the inaugural Miami race telecast in May 2022.

“We’re actually seeing our strongest growing fanbase is young females in the sport,” said Wolff. “I think it’s the next generation driving growth.”