Charities supporting female motorsport, and engineering scholarships for black students, will be the first to receive grants from the Ignite Partnership.
Founded in 2021 by Sir Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, the charity was created to increase diversity and inclusion within motorsport. It has more than £5 million of seed funding available for projects.
Motorsport UK and the Royal Academy of Engineering will be the first beneficiaries of the Ignite Partnership. The money will promote motorsport careers to girls, and help black students gain engineering scholarships.
Expanding motorsport careers to all
The Royal Academy of Engineering will look to establish a motorsport scholarship scheme to support 10 black students.
This will take place across the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years, allowing students to study a masters degree in engineering or another motorsport-related subject.
Seeing 90 percent of the scholars find a role in motorsport will be the key success criteria.
Motorsport UK’s FIA Girls on Track programme will also receive funding.
Launched in 2016, the Girls on Track UK programme aims to encourage underrepresented groups to take an interest in motorsport careers. This has a special focus on improving female representation.
The new funding will expand the programme to reach 8,000 girls and young women from ages eight to 24. New schools will be added, with at least 50 percent of the participants qualifying for free school meals.
Pushing for better representation
Sir Lewis Hamilton’s own charitable foundation, Mission 44, leads the coordination of the Ignite Partnership initiative.
Following the announcement of the first two funding grants, the seven-time Formula 1 World Champion said: “I’m very proud to see Ignite announcing our first two grants today. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes since launching and I’m delighted that Mercedes and I can continue to demonstrate our commitment towards creating a more diverse industry in this way.
“We chose these grants because they focus on supporting individuals from two crucial and underrepresented demographics, moving us towards our goal of increasing the number of women and black talent in the sport. The events of this week have shown us why there continues to be an urgent need to push for better representation in our industry. More than ever, we must focus on how we can use action to change motorsport for the better and this is an exciting next step.”
The funding announcement comes ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix. Our full preview guide to the race is available here.
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