Whitmarsh among members of Hamilton Commission

Lewis Hamilton’s former McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh is among the 14 experts who will make up the Hamilton Commission, a research project set up by the six-time Formula One champion to identify the barriers for Black people participating in motor sport.

Hamilton and the Royal Academy of Engineering launched the Hamilton Commission earlier this year and it officially started work on September 1 by holding its first meeting of its board of commissioners. Hamilton, F1’s only Black driver, is co-chairing the project alongside the Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dr Hayaatun Sillem.

Former U.K. sports minister Tracey Couch is also on the board of commissioners, which has been selected to « represent a wide range of expertise spanning critical areas of influence including motorsport, engineering, schools, colleges and universities, community/youth groups, as well as major U.K. political parties ».

The full list can be found below:

• Karen Chouhan, Lead Equality Officer with a specialism in race policy for the National Education Union

• Jeremy Crook, Chief Executive of the Black Training and Enterprise Group

• Tracey Crouch MP, former Sports Minister and British Conservative Party politician

• Dr Nike Folayan, Co-founder and Chair of the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers, AFBE-UK

• Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London

• Mark Hamlin, Chair of Project 44

• Dr Zubaida Haque, Former Interim Director of the Runnymede Trust

• Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, Co-founder of Stemettes and Trustee at the Institute for the Future of Work

• George Imafidon, Co-Founder of Motivez, One Young World Ambassador and Royal Academy of Engineering Scholar

• Glen Lambert, Head of School of Construction, Science and Engineering at College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London

• Professor David Mba, Pro-Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise, and Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media at De Montfort University

• Izzy Obeng, Managing Director at Foundervine and Non-Executive Director for Capital Enterprise

• Chi Onwurah MP, British Member of Parliament representing Newcastle upon Tyne Central and also Shadow Minister Digital, Science & Technology

• Martin Whitmarsh, Former CEO of the McLaren Formula One Team, Chairman of BAR Technologies Limited

Once the Hamilton Commission has identified the key barriers Black people face in recruitment and progression in U.K. motor sport, it will provide recommendations of ways in which those barriers can be overcome. The project will be focused on the U.K. but a statement said the actions will also be proposed internationally if they are replicable in other countries.

« Since I began my professional racing career in Formula One, 14 years ago, I was the first driver of colour and to this day, sadly that is still the case, » Hamilton said in a statement. « However, what is more concerning is that there are still very few people of colour across the sport as a whole.

« In F1, our teams are much bigger than the athletes that front them, but representation is insufficient across every skill set – from the garage to the engineers in the factories and design departments. Change isn’t coming quickly enough, and we need to know why.

« This is why I wanted to set up the Commission and I’m proud to be working with the Royal Academy of Engineering and our incredible Board of Commissioners to identify the barriers facing young Black people to take up STEM careers in motorsport. We are dedicated to this cause and together, we will make a change. »

The Hamilton Commission was first proposed by Hamilton late last year and was launched in June. It is due to run for nine months from its official start date on September 1.