- Hamilton reveals childhood racism and bullying as fuel behind his F1 career.
- Paper cuts, beatings, xenophobia: the wounds Hamilton stored in silence.
- £20 million pledge later, same wounds became the foundation of Mission 44.
Lewis Hamilton has spoken candidly about the racism, bullying and childhood hardships that quietly shaped one of the most decorated careers in motorsport history.
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion made the remarks in a segment on the official Formula 1 YouTube channel titled “So You Think You Know F1 Drivers?“
The clip, which has since drawn wide attention, shows Hamilton reflecting on what made him the person he is, and his answer has nothing to do with podiums or titles.
Asked whether a single moment defined him, Hamilton did not hesitate to look back, far beyond the racetrack.
“There’s not one moment, there’s many moments”
Hamilton was measured in the way he spoke, but the weight behind his words was clear.
“There’s not one moment, there’s many moments,” he said. “I would say the ones that have shaped me the most have been, kind of, environmental, so… beatings, fights you get stuck in, bullying, name calling, all those sorts of things.”
He did not stop there. He described being told to “go back to my country” and spoke of storing all of it away, quietly, like fuel in a tank.
Then came the image that stopped everything. After a brief pause, Hamilton called these experiences “paper cuts, or wounds.”
It is a phrase that earns its place. Each incident, taken alone, might seem like something a person could brush off.
Together, they leave a mark that does not fully go away. For Hamilton, growing up Black in Britain, these were not occasional slights. They were the texture of ordinary life.
Growing up in Stevenage: where the wounds began
Lewis Hamilton was born on Jan. 7, 1985, and raised in Stevenage. He began karting at the age of six, the same age, he has said, that the bullying started.
In an appearance on the “On Purpose” podcast with Jay Shetty, Hamilton described school as “probably the most traumatising part of my life.”
He was one of only a handful of Black students. Older, bigger children singled him out. The taunting was racial and relentless.
He recalled others using the N-word with an ease that suggested it cost them nothing to say. He also described a system that never quite opened up for him, placed in the lowest sets at school and promised advancement that never came, no matter how hard he worked.
What made it harder was the silence he kept at home. He did not want his father, Anthony, to see him struggle. So he held the tears in and carried the weight on his own.
The xenophobia he referenced in the F1 YouTube clip fits neatly into this same period. These were not random incidents scattered across years.
They were part of a sustained climate in which his presence was questioned, and his ambitions were quietly mocked. He took it all in. And then he went racing.
Racing as release
The kart track gave Hamilton something that the classroom and the playground did not: a place where none of it mattered.
He has described the feeling of pulling on a helmet as something close to transformation, a moment where his “superpowers would come out.”
For a boy who often felt unseen or unwelcome, speed became the great equaliser.
The ability to find a line through a corner that no one else could see turned out to be worth more than anything his school ever tried to teach him.
Hamilton has previously described the bullying and racism as something that “encouraged” him, calling the experiences “battle wounds” and adding that they made him tougher.
The F1 YouTube clip returns to that same truth, but with the added depth of a man who has now spent two decades at the top of a sport that once barely knew he existed.
Reflecting on his childhood with Jay Shetty, Hamilton said, “I’m so grateful for that journey, because that’s what built me to the person that I am today.”
It is the same sentiment he carried into the F1 YouTube clip. The wounds were not wasted. They were carried, and eventually converted into something the sport had never quite seen before.
Hamilton has also been clear that the racism did not stay in the past.
As recently as the 2022 British Grand Prix weekend, he said he had been “on the receiving end of racism, criticism, negativity and archaic narratives, for a long, long time,” and argued that simply condemning racism was not a sufficient response.
From personal pain to collective action
What sets Hamilton apart from many athletes who have faced similar hardships is what he chose to do once he had the platform to act.
After seeing a 2019 end-of-season team photograph and noticing how little it reflected the world he came from, Hamilton felt compelled to act.
He co-founded The Hamilton Commission alongside the Royal Academy of Engineering to look at the underrepresentation of Black people in UK motorsport and in the wider STEM sector.
The Commission found that fewer than 1% of those working in Formula 1 came from Black backgrounds. That figure prompted the sport to introduce the F1 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Charter.
In 2021, Hamilton launched Mission 44, pledging £20 million of his own money to support programmes that narrow gaps in education and employment for young people facing injustice.
The name itself carries a quiet meaning. Mission 44 is drawn from his car number, a reminder that where you start does not have to determine where you finish.
Formula 1 has since officially adopted the charity, supporting its work in representation, diversity and inclusion across the sport.
Hamilton holds the records for most wins (105), pole positions (104) and podium finishes (203) in Formula 1 history. None of those numbers arrived without cost.
In a brief, unguarded moment on a YouTube channel, the man who built all of that showed exactly what the cost looked like.
Not a single defining moment. Not one clean origin story. Just a quiet accumulation of paper cuts, carried carefully, and put to use.
