Mercedes is renowned as the Silver Arrows, but for the 2020 season, the world champions will change the colors of Lewis Hamilton‘s and Valtteri Bottas‘ cars to black to protest racism and prejudice and to increase the diversity of their team. The six-time world champion, who has been an outspoken backer of the anti-racism rallies sparked by George Floyd’s death on May 25th, initially discussed the idea with team principal Toto Wolff a month ago. The announcement comes amid global rallies in favor of Black Lives Matter, a movement that Hamilton – F1’s first black superstar – has actively endorsed.
Hamilton has subsequently announced the formation of a new commission to increase diversity in racing, while Formula One has established the #WeRaceAsOne campaign, as well as a new Task Force dedicated to discovering job and educational possibilities for under-represented groups within Formula 1. “We want to use our worldwide platform and our voice to advocate for respect and equality, and the Silver Arrow will race in black for the whole 2020 season to demonstrate our commitment to more diversity within our team and our sport.”
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Only 3% of the workforce of Mercedes-Benz comes from a minority ethnic background, and only 12% of employees are female. The club claims that this lack of diversity demonstrates the need for new techniques to attract talent from parts of society that they do not currently access, and they have committed to launching a diversity and inclusion initiative before the end of the season. Wolff discussed his talks with Hamilton during a media event in Vienna on Monday, according to Austrian tabloid Der Standard. He explained that Hamilton wanted the team to express its support for the cause in ways other than social media posts, which led to the notion of adopting a new livery and launching a push to enhance diversity within the squad.
