Hamilton: Mercedes team photo shows still 'long way to go' in diversity drive

Lewis Hamilton believes there is "still a long way to go" before Formula 1 meets its diversity goals.

The seven-time World Champion set up the Hamilton Commission, which produced a report in 2020 after 10 months of research which identified barriers to the recruitment and progression of black people in UK motorsport.

F1 itself revealed details of how it plans to improve diversity in the championship as part of their 'We Race as One' campaign, which ran across the 2020 season.

Engineering Scholarships in F1 were made available for students from "underrepresented groups" as part of the plan, while several other plans were outlined as part of the initiative.

But Hamilton still feels there is a long way to go before these commitments are delivered, pointing towards a recent team photo when speaking to media, including RacingNews365, about the matter.

"It's been a long process that started really here in 2019. 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."

Hamilton: We're creating a future pipeline

Hamilton believes much of the work to improve diversity needs to be done using grassroots initiatives, which is why he launched the Ignite charity to promote science, technology, education and maths for young people.

"The work that I'm doing is really targeting kids and creating a future pipeline," said Hamilton.

"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."