Hamilton: "I can’t just think, ‘I deserve to be here’"

Lewis Hamilton thinks he would never have made it to Formula One if he had to start his racing career now. The sport has become much more expensive to get into than it was when Hamilton was first in a kart.

Hamilton always goes to the limit

This is not the first time Hamilton has spoken out about the 'billionaire boys club', as he once called Formula 1. He thinks he wouldn't have made it to F1 if he'd started karting now. "There’s no way that we would make it now if we started from where we started," the Mercedes driver says in an interview with The Guardian.

"I know how hard it was for my dad just to have fresh tyres at the weekend. It’s impacted me heavily. I can’t just think, ‘I deserve to be here.’ I can’t squander this opportunity. I have to grab it with both hands and really dig deep every single time I’m in the car," Hamilton continued.

Opportunities for everyone

For years Hamilton has been committed to getting more people from ethnic minorities into motorsport. In doing so he looks far beyond the twenty drivers who appear on the grid. "There’s only twenty seats in the drivers’ space. That’s not so important to me," he said.

"But there are over 40,000 jobs across motor sports in the UK, and less than 1% are filled by people from Black backgrounds. So there’s a lot of opportunity in so many different categories, not just engineering," Hamilton concludes.