Changing the Mindset in F1

Three weeks ago, Naomi Schiff, professional female racing driver, became the victim of online abuse from trolls after recently becoming a Sky Sports F1 presenter. Twitter trolls began questioning her right to analyse racing and suggested she was only given the role due to being a woman of colour. This abuse was met with a barrage of comments defending Schiff’s talent both as a professional racing driver and TV personality. Among the support were current formula one drivers – seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton defended Schiff by saying “‘Naomi is an ex-professional racing driver and totally qualified to give her opinion as part of the Sky team. She’s been a great asset since joining and we should welcome more representative broadcasting with open arms. Still have a long way to go to change these attitudes in sport.”

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It’s a current opinion of many men that female presenters, commentators and even athletes should not be linked to male dominated sports. Time and time again we see complaints from football fans about women being involved in professional matches whether it be as commentators or journalists. This misogynistic attitude can’t continue in sport and as Lewis said, we “have a long way to go to change these attitudes. ”It wasn’t long before Lewis Hamilton was back in the headlines after a video on Nelson Piquet surfaced, where he used a Portuguese racial slur and homophobic language to describe the seven-time world champion. The comments were made in a 2021 interview on a Brazilian podcast following Hamilton’s win at the British Grand Prix where he was involved in a crash that ended Max Verstappen’s race. Since the video became widespread news, Piquet has apologised and defended his actions by claiming his comments had no racist intent.In response, Lewis took to twitter and wrote “Vamos focar em mudar a mentalidade” which translates to “Let’s focus on changing the mindset”. He then joked with a fellow twitter user about not knowing who Nelson Piquet is before making a final statement that read “It’s more than language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport. I’ve been surrounded by these attitudes and targeted my whole life. There has been plenty of time to learn. Time has come for action.”

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Lewis has consistently campaigned for equality in motorsport and all over the world, by creating charities, foundations and much more. We believe it is a great shame to see an ex-professional racing driver racially attack someone who has done more for both Formula 1 and motorsport than anyone previously. Since then, Piquet has been banned from entering the F1 Paddock and could face criminal charges. Overall, what we can take from both shocking stories is that Formula 1 have their problems with racism and misogyny, however, we can all agree that Lewis Hamilton is not only paving the way for a more equal sport, but he continues to stand up for what he, and many of us, believe in. We can also take some positivity from these headlines though; the amount of support Naomi Schiff has received from Formula 1 fans and colleagues is excellent to see and it shows things are beginning to change for women in sport. The support shown towards Lewis Hamilton is also thrilling for us to see. Even though there is still so much to be done to tackle discrimination within sport, we are slowly but surely noticing changes among sporting culture. We will continue to attempt to tackle discrimination in sport at its core but we can’t do it without you: we must stand as one.