Lewis Hamilton: ‘I really discovered my purpose, it’s not just being an F1 driver’

Lewis Hamilton says he feels a responsibility to be more than just a racing driver for the rest of his Formula 1 career.

The 37-year-old is the most successful athlete in the history of the sport, with more race wins and pole positions than any other driver, as well as the joint-highest number of drivers’ championships with seven.

In the past few years he has taken a more prominent role on social issues, including the Black Lives Matter movement from 2020 onwards, and has set up the Hamilton Commission initiative with the goal of increasing the participation of black people in motorsport. Hamilton is the only black driver to have raced in F1 in its 72-year history.

Hamilton regularly works with his Mercedes team and Formula 1 itself on social issues. After consultation with Hamilton, he Silver Arrows have committed to increasing the proportion of black and minority ethnic personnel in its staff, and F1 has launched a task force with the goal of identifying employment and education opportunities for under-represented groups in motorsport.

Telling Sky Sports about his goals for the future, Hamilton said: ‘My role here I think is to continue to hold those conversations, sit with Stefano [Domenicali, F1’s CEO] and say “what are you doing and how can we work together?”‘

‘It goes back to bringing people on the journey rather than calling people out and unfortunately it takes a lot of yapping but I think people seem more keen to be on the journey together and they empathise more with it and say yes, we can do a better job.

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