Lewis Hamilton

Formula One’s ruling body, the FIA, launch a campaign in Barcelona on Thursday against racism in motor sport. The initiative was prompted by the abuse levelled at Lewis Hamilton, F1’s first and only black driver, during testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in February.

Hamilton was subjected to racial insults from morons in the crowd, some of whom wore wigs with blackened faces. The ruling body claim the move is not political, which begs the question: what’s the point?

Of course it’s political. That Hamilton is the only driver of Afro-Caribbean descent tells its own story. The 23-year-old Briton has broadened the appeal of F1 beyond the narrow priesthood of petrol heads who follow the fortunes of the world’s fastest drivers.

But in truth neither his team, McLaren, nor the sport had a clue what to do with him politically until shaken from complacency by the bigots of Barcelona. McLaren made it a condition of any interview that Hamilton's ethnicity is not raised. For them it was all about his talent.

That position ignored Hamilton’s burgeoning appeal in parts of the planet once untouched by grand prix racing. He is a hero in parts of Africa, for example, where horsepower retains a literal application.

This trend met its polar opposite in Spain, a nation locked in a love affair with the sport’s youngest world champion, Fernando Alonso. The aversion to Hamilton in the Iberian Peninsula was hitherto contained within a sporting framework. Blind love of their hombre necessarily produced unconditional dislike of Hamilton.

But in February, animosity took a pernicious twist when Hamilton’s ethnicity became the focus of abuse. Spain has had its problems in this area, highlighted by racist comments made by national football coach Luis Aragones about Thierry Henry.

Hamilton played down the incident. In one sense it is not his fight. He has enough on his plate keeping pace with Kimi Raikkonen. On the other hand, fate has handed him the role of stereotype buster. Whether Hamilton likes it or not, he is the face of opportunity in a sport that has been manifestly awful at inclusion.

Photographer Darren Heath was recently commissioned to take portraits of F1 individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds. The idea being that the door is open regardless of creed. Heath turned up 50 varieties of homo sapiens, not quite meeting the Heinz standard, but close enough to suggest that F1 does not discriminate.