Lewis Hamilton Personally Welcomes Young Black Mechanic Into His Racing Team After Surprise Application
Jacob Alexander has bagged himself a place in Hamilton's Extreme E racing team after his father secretly sent in his application.
Lewis Hamilton has offered a young, black engineer an opportunity in his Extreme E team after the young man gained candidacy to the ‘Racing for All’ scholarship.
In fact, the 7-time world champion was partly responsible for the scholarship with it being a recommendation to the sport from the Hamilton Commission, also set up by the racer to improve diversity in motorsport. This comes as no surprise with the Brit battling against racism throughout his career.
The student, Jacob Alexander, had his application personally reviewed by Hamilton before he had his final interview with the chief mechanic of the team, X44 Vida Carbon Racing. He aced it, and has been added as an optional 6th mechanic. Usually there are 5 mechanics per car, but a sixth is allowed if they’re from an under-represented background as per the RFA initiative. Alexander is the first to receive this.
What makes this story even better is the fact that Alexander had no idea he was being looked at by the British driver. It was actually his father who had admitted his application to the team and the young mechanic had no idea until he received an email about the position. Excited would be an understatement.
Hamilton is incredibly interested in being involved in the team’s management, according to the associate sporting director of the X44, Stephanie Travers. So it’s no surprise that following this, he personally wrote to Jacob to welcome him to the team.
