Do we like Lewis Hamilton?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of backing LGBTQ+ people and diversity with his own money and platform, and no harmful words or company found, though the record on how he treats staff is thinner.
Hamilton is the seven-time world champion who left Mercedes for Ferrari, and he has been the sport's only Black driver for most of his career. He has turned that position into a cause. In 2020 he founded the Hamilton Commission to push for better representation in motorsport, and he followed it with a charity the next year.
The charity is Mission 44, launched in July 2021 with a personal pledge of £20m. It backs programmes that close gaps in education and employment for underrepresented young people. A joint scheme with Mercedes, called Ignite, sits under it and aims to bring more diverse people into engineering.
On the harm test, the record is a clean one. In November 2021 he wore a rainbow helmet in Progress Pride colours in Qatar, a country with hostile laws, reading “We Stand Together”. Racing Pride’s co-founder called it “an incredible act of allyship”.
He has also kept at it when politics got awkward. After the Trump administration moved against diversity programs in early 2025, he told TIME he can't change government policy, but can “elevate people” in his own space. He added that “It is a fight that we'll just keep fighting.” Where you land on that depends on your politics, but it is a clear stand on diversity.
The on-track drama is the recent noise. At the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix he copped a pit-lane speeding penalty, and he suggested stewards were penalising him at every opportunity. Former steward Johnny Herbert gave a blunt view, with a linked headline calling the penalty his own fault. In early October Ferrari and Hamilton were investigated again, over an allegation he impeded Gabriel Bortoleto in practice.
We found no court cases against him and no allegations of mistreating people from established outlets. That is a gap in the record, not a guarantee, and the good-person pass rests mostly on what he has given and said publicly. The penalties are racing stuff, not character stuff.