How Lewis Hamilton’s mother and stepmother shaped his success

Please welcome seven-time world champion and Mercedes-AMG Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton! Good to see you. Good to see you. Hi everyone. I think they're in a little bit of shock, Lewis. So am I. Because they've been, look at, listen to how quiet they are, because I was, I was so worried, Lewis. Someone has given me a heads up about this crowd saying they're pretty raw because they're pretty hard to control. But I think they're in awe and shock, understandably. So Lewis, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. You know you want a tight schedule and it's all about the race. So we really, really appreciate it. We're very grateful that you are here. This is amazing. I've been coming here for 16 years and this is the first time that Mercedes has ever done this. This is incredible to see so many women in Mercedes hospitality. And it's a pretty top-notch crowd, Lewis. Yeah, everyone looks amazing. They look amazing. I feel super underdressed today. Well, you always do your wonderful fashion thing, you can lead the way. Let's jump into it. We're so excited that you're back in Australia. It's wonderful to be here. It's wonderful that the Grand Prix is on. How does it feel to be back in Australia? How are you? It feels great. It's great to be back here. I've always loved coming out here. But I remember obviously the last time we were here, everything shut down and we left. And it's been such a difficult time for everyone I know. It must be horrendous for everyone here who's not been able to travel. But I love the trip out here as well. It's quite long. It's literally on the other side of the world. But I broke it up this time. I stopped in Dubai. I saw on your Insta. I saw you had a cheeky skydive on your Insta. Yeah. Hey, you've spoken previously about some of the women who inspire you in motorsport. Do you see the role of women in Formula 1 continuing to grow and to evolve? Absolutely. Yeah. I think at the moment, diversity has got to be one of the main focuses for us. But gender equality particularly as well. It's something that... I've been in this sport for 29 years. I started when I was eight. And 16 years in professional. But majority, male-dominated industry has always been a white-dominated industry. White male-dominated industry. And we're working as a team to make sure that we're pushing for diversity. We've got a lot more women, for example, within our team. But there's so many opportunities, great opportunities here. And there's a lot of these amazing women coming through. I've got Cristina Gutierrez who races for my team, X44. She's an incredible champion, rally driver. You've got this amazing young lady in Saudi where they didn't even allow women to drive until 2018. She's got a racing license. But you've got Stephanie Travers who's the first black woman that's been on the podium two years ago, I think it was, with me. And you've got Susie Stoddard who's CEO and real boss. So there's a lot of great opportunity. There's no female drivers coming through currently that I've noticed. We've got to change that. But there's so many jobs in the background. And it's just about encouraging women to want to get involved and creating an environment where they feel comfortable, included. And treated equally. I mean, you don't just talk the talk, though. You say that you're about racial equality. You walk the walk. And I do want to suggest that you jump on, you read the Hamilton Commission, something that Lewis has funded. It's incredible. It goes back to the granular grassroots reasons why we don't have representation in the engineers, in the teams, in the pits. And it's just amazing that he's not just saying this stuff. He's throwing the money directly into research and data to try and change our world. And it's so impressive. What words of encouragement would you give to somebody here who's inspiring to go into motorsport? Can I just tap into that? Just the reason that I went around that is that when I would ask questions to our leaders, they would never have an answer. They wouldn't have the right answers. They would be like, I don't know. Why is there not many women within the company? Why there's not any women in our sport? Why do we have female drivers? And there was never an adequate answer. So that's why I did this research. I've always been the only person of color throughout my career. Every time I'm in meetings with all these engineers, mechanics, I'm always the only person of color in the room. When we're doing photo shoots, only a person of color in the room. And you notice it when you walk in. And you wonder, where is everyone? Why is it not diverse? And there's research now that shows that a diverse workforce is much, much better for an organization. But it seems that there's still conscious bias in hiring. Our team, we've gone through diversity inclusion training. I went through the first. I did it first. Because you can always learn, right? And I wanted to understand what the barriers of that were. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done. I can't do it all on my own. So we need support from great people like Mercedes. Well, you've taken such a beautiful first step. I learned so much about myself and my life and what I need to change when I read that report. It's online, Hamilton Commission. It's really worth a read. So if you've got someone in the room now, Lewis, who you'd love to give encouragement to, who hasn't maybe thought about engineering or hasn't thought about a role in the team in Formula 1, what would you say to them? How would you encourage them? I think really showing we need women. And I think for us men, we need to be championing women more and more and more. We've got, as I said, we've got Naomi Sheaf who's here championing diversity in the W Series. She's now doing it on the TV broadcast. I think really just, look, I mean, life is a struggle. And I think every day there's failure. There's always an opportunity, a potential for failure. And I feel like we limit ourselves as human beings. I feel like we've got to be taking risks. Don't fear embarrassment. Don't fear any hardships. If you don't try and if you don't fail, you'll never know what your limits are. You'll be limiting yourself most of the time. I just love that we have a seven-time world champion ultimately sitting here talking about vulnerability. That you're still saying, you know what, there's fear there. I'm aware of it. It's a backdrop. And that's what almost gives me drive. That's just so refreshing, Lewis. Your family, let's talk to them. They've played a massive role in your career and your success. And we do know that they mean so much to you. Can you tell us a little bit about them? Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the reasons that I'm here today and have the success is that I've got actually two mums. Two incredibly independent, powerful women. And I've actually got a whole team of women behind me who power me every day. There's a lady here. Oh, Angela. Who's with me 280 days of the year. She's got her own family. Tough job, Angela. Tough job. Yeah. For seven years we've been together today. And she was just mentioning yesterday that something about seven years together, that gives you the limit. Yes. So you've moved past the seven year itch, Angela. Well done. Yeah. But my mum is, my mum and my stepmum, Linda, my stepmum became my stepmum when I was two. And she was incredible. She sacrificed, my dad and my stepmum worked together to get me into racing. So she sacrificed all of her money, everything. She didn't go out and buy new dresses. They weren't out enjoying life or on holidays. All of their money went into racing. And my dad couldn't have done that alone. I remember being at home and her stitching my name into my first suit. Keeping us warm throughout the weekend. Making sure that we were, otherwise we wouldn't have drunk, we wouldn't have eaten. We would have been completely useless. And that supportive structure that both my mums have given me has really enabled me to excel. And I think also we live in a world where there's not enough compassion and not enough empathy. I feel like I really got that from both my mother's sides. My dad's just a hard nut. Just work your butt off. Very aggressive. My dad never gave me a hug when I was younger. It was all coming from my mum's side. My parents, my mum would sit down with me and read. Take me through all my classes. And without them I wouldn't be here at all. But I think I talk a lot about my dad because we've had a lot of hardships. And I think my dad, he did sacrifice a lot. He had four jobs at one stage to keep me racing. But he was also that protector for me. I was bullied a lot at school. I went to a school where there's not many people of colour. I was beaten up a lot. I was one of the smaller kids. And I remember being at the track and I had that one black male figure that was with me. Because I was the only other person of colour there. And so he was very, very important also. You are a beautiful reflection of that paradox though, Lewis. And I live on a farm. And I was driving to the speed limit, not trying to be you, on the way here. And I was reflecting on you, that you're such an amazing paradox. So when you mention those two influences from your parents it makes sense. You're successful but you're generous. You are tough and you're gentle. Like you seem to exhibit... Everyone that I've spoken to on your team this morning was just like, he's just a really bloody great human. He's just a really nice human. And it's so refreshing to hear you talk about that those threads from your family have come through and contributed to the success and to the person that you are. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. We don't have a lot of time so I'm going to punch through. Even though I'm just adoring this, such a highlight too. What do you do when you're not racing? Like what sort of floats your boat when you're not in that mindset of having to sort of control so many things? Well, my dad's a control freak and naturally I probably am a bit of a control freak. Am I a control freak, Ange? Am I a control freak? Yes. I don't know. I work a lot. I'm a workaholic. I like being busy. I like challenging myself every single day with something new. I like to start my day off listing what it is I want to achieve that day. I set myself a lot of targets. Like, for example, I landed here on Monday night. I've always wanted to have piano lessons. So like Tuesday and Wednesday I've been having these piano lessons. Here? Yeah. Oh, my God. You fit piano lessons in? What does that do for your brain when you're preparing for a race? Well, it just challenges your mind naturally being able to focus on something different. When I leave the racetrack and when I'm not at the racetrack, I'm not thinking about racing a lot. Wow. I try and switch off. I skydive. I like surfing. So I was at the surf pool last night, the last two nights at 10 p.m. till 12, surfing. In the surf pool because there's sharks here. Yeah. We do have the odd sharks. So you went to the urban surf type thing? Yeah, urban surf. Awesome. I always find Aussies, they're always, don't worry. There's no sharks in the ocean. We turn on Shark Week and a guy's lost his arm. It's like, no, they're not human ears. We do the same with crocodiles up north. Yeah, or spiders. That's why I stay as high as I can in my hotel. I check my hotel room. I always check under the toilet. Spiders, I don't go there. Yeah, I love reading. I love traveling. I've got a bulldog. So that's my son. Oh, I know. We love the bulldog. And just spending time, creating memories. I think that's the only thing we can take with us, right? And I spend a lot of time on a lot of Zoom calls currently with Mission 44 and Ignite, which I started with the team, and then just challenging a lot of the people in our industry because I think no one else is actually having those serious conversations. I'm basically a thorn in the thigh of the industry. Just making sure that we're challenging ourselves. We're doing enough because I don't feel any industry or any company is doing enough. They can always do more. We can always do more for people. And I'm very, very fortunate. I never thought that I would ever have a platform like I do. And I feel a responsibility to utilize that at all costs to help youngsters come through, to encourage people. We all struggle with something, right? And it doesn't matter if you've seen successful people at the top. They've also got their insecurities. They've also got those failures every day, the struggles, those wonders about themselves. And so, yeah, just trying to challenge and be the best version of myself I can be each day. Yeah, it's completely inspiring, Lewis. And I love on your Insta that you've got Living My Purpose and sort of it's almost like you're proclaiming to the world that I'm trying to give other people the chance to believe in themselves and be the best version of themselves. I think that's key, right? Believing in yourself is one of the... I think that's probably been personally one of the most important parts. There's definitely days where I feel like a failure. Believe it or not, I feel like a failure. I feel like I'm not good enough. There's days where I don't like the way you look or the way you dress, whatever it may be. But believing in yourself, learning to love yourself and just not giving up. That's just never giving up. So I think that's really... Believing in myself is really what's enabled me to do what I do on track and then standing up for what I believe in and just going with your heart. Yeah, such beautiful, pure messages. We're going to have to wrap it up because you're on a very tight schedule here. I should have introduced you really as Sir Lewis Hamilton. How does it feel to be knighted? That's pretty fancy. It's very fancy. And my niece and nephew call me Sir Uncle, which is kind of cool. And I can't get them to stop. But it's very, very surreal, honestly. I don't really think about it very often. But the actual day that I went to the palace to get the award, I took my mom with me. I got an MBE, so there are different steps that you can take. Many, many years ago, I got an MBE, took my dad and my stepmom, and that's where I got to meet the Queen for a second, which is pretty amazing. And then going to Prince Charles, I met him when I was 13, I think, when I was just a youngster coming through. And taking my mom there, she looked amazing. I sent her shopping to Selfridges. She got all done up. She looked incredible. Afterward, she felt like she was a— I FaceTimed her the next day, and she's like, I'm busy being a fashion icon because everyone's been commenting on her outfit. So she felt amazing. She felt like a million bucks. But I just remember we walk in, and she's on my arm. And then we had to separate, and I had to do the kneeling and everything and the sword over my shoulders. And I just looked to my right, and she's standing there with the biggest smile I've ever seen. So that was, for me, one of the most special moments I ever experienced. Oh, how beautiful. Lewis Hamilton, you are a wholehearted person. Thank you for doing the work that you do. Of course we respect what you're doing on the track, but thank you for being the human being you are and making those beautiful ripples that are changing the world. We are so grateful that you've spent time with us today. Can you please thank Sir Lewis Hamilton? Big round of applause. Thank you again.