Mercedes has added a rainbow theme on the Mercedes logo on the nose of the W13 to celebrate Pride Month.
The Mercedes F1 team is displaying its public support for the LGBTQ+ community by running a rainbow Star on their vehicles for the next three races, which coincides with Pride Month throughout the world.
June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month, a month dedicated to raising awareness about the community’s daily struggles with inequality and prejudice.
Mercedes’ multi-coloured emblem will be seen on the Brackley team’s vehicles in Azerbaijan, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as on Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s helmets and overalls.
“Happy Pride Month, We’re proud to be running the Mercedes Benz Pride Star on our W13s for the next three races, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and raising awareness for Pride Month,” Mercedes tweet read.
“Alongside running the Pride Star, we also have a range of internal and external activities planned for Pride Month, as part of our Accelerate 25 programme to become a more diverse and inclusive team.”
“Displaying the Pride star represents a visual expression of our commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive team,” a video embedded on the tweet said.
“We firmly believe that promoting a culture in which our team members can freely express their personality and identity will result in a stronger and more performant team.”
“Under the banner of the Mercedes-Benz Pride Star, we share a commitment to a culture of diversity, inclusivity and stand against all forms of discrimination.
“Everyone is different. But we are all equal. We stand for openness, trust and fairness. And we believe everyone deserves to be respected and appreciated for who they are.”
The Hamilton commission, which attempted to identify areas of F1 and world sport where minorities are underrepresented and discriminated against, was launched around the same time as Mercedes’ Accelerate 25 programme.
It discovered that “racist, homophobic, and sexist” yelling had increased in sports including football, rugby, and cricket, and it went on to describe some of McLaren and Mercedes’ measures to encourage inclusivity.
The Hamilton Commission’s report, released in June 2020, described the actions Mercedes has taken, and will continue to take, to guarantee that its workforce is more diverse by 2025.
“In 2020 Mercedes AMG Petronas announced the launch of Accelerate 25, a five-year programme of action which commits to an ambition of at least 25% of all new employees in the team coming from underrepresented groups in each year up to and including 2025,” read the report.
“To deliver this commitment, the team has begun a range of internal and external initiatives to accelerate its learning, benchmark its processes and reach talent pools it has not previously accessed.”
“An extensive internal diversity and inclusion training programme has been launched for over 200 managers responsible for recruitment, with focus on unconscious bias and inclusive leadership; there is a target for all team members to have ‘Accelerate Inclusion’ training by mid-2021.”
