Lewis Hamilton praise Stephanie Travers

…Zimbabwean breaks 70 year old history

SIX time Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton has praised Zimbabwean born Stephanie Travers after she joined him on the podium at the Red Bull Ring for the second round of the 2020 season.

GIRL POWER: Zimbabwean Stephanie Travers (right) on Sunday became the first black woman to stand on the F1 podium. Six time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton described the achievement as “amazing.”

By doing so Travers (25) – a trackside fluid engineer for Petronas – fuel partner for the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, she became the first black woman to stand on the podium in the 70 years of the world championship’s history.

Travers was selected by her team to receive the constructors’ trophy on their behalf after Hamilton (35) claimed a convincing victory on Sunday during the Styrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.

Hamilton posted about the significance of the moment on his Instagram account describing it as “an important moment,” for the sport.

“I wanted to post this because it’s such an important moment. This is Stephanie who is one of my team mates. She is one of our trackside fluid engineers. On Sunday, she became the first black woman to stand on the podium in Formula 1 history,” she wrote.

“This is an amazing achievement and I just wanted to acknowledge her for her hard work, positivity, and passion for her job.

“Like most of the jobs in our sport they are in high demand, and Stephanie was selected out of over 7 000 applicants for her role. Steph said she wants to inspire young black children, and children of colour to believe that they can do it too, and I couldn’t agree more.

“Put your mind to it, and you can be anything you want to be. So whilst I really appreciate all of the congratulations, I wanted take the opportunity to lift her up, and share them with her #manifest #hardwork #bethechange,” he added.

Travers’ appearance on the podium last weekend was also welcomed by Mercedes, which posted on Twitter: “How awesome was it to see Steph collecting the podium on behalf of Petronas Motorsports and the whole team today.”

And team sponsors Petronas added: “Proud to see Stephanie Travers repping the entire Petronas family on the podium.”

In 2018, Travers applied for the position of trackside fluid engineer for Petronas. Out of the more than 7000 applications, Travers got the opportunity and has been with the company ever since.

Following the appointment, Petronas group chief executive officer Giuseppe D’Arrigo said: “I believe that Stephanie’s skill set, passion, determination and positive attitude will make her an incredible addition to our team.”

“I’m sure that Stephanie will further strengthen our team at the track,” Mercedes principal Toto Wolff added in the same announcement. “The programme has become a great asset to find and develop talent in our highly competitive industry.

“Having fluid engineers in the on-track laboratory gives us the opportunity to quickly analyse lubricants from the car and to respond to potential challenges in real-time.”

As a guest speaker at the Engen Talks Lubricants webinar last month, Travers who has been living in England since 2004 shared the inside track about her position, her passion for motorsports and the Petronas Syntium lubricants range, available exclusively at Engen and their authorised distributors.
“As a trackside engineer, I analyse the engine oil, gearbox oil, and the fuel throughout the F1 race weekend.

“I do the fuel analysis to ensure that we’re complying with FIA regulations, to check that there is no contamination in the fuel drums and that there’s no carryover if we’ve changed the spec of fuel,” explains Travers.

Working for the global energy giant Petronas, the title sponsors for the Mercedes AMG F1 team, means that Travers and the rest of the F1 team continually push the boundaries of innovation.
“Working together and responding to the team’s key requirements enabled us to become six-time double world champions last year,” says the Chemical Engineering graduate. “This was not easy to achieve and on average, during a race weekend, we worked 70-80 hours.”

Hamilton is an activist for the Black Lives Matter movement and has been vocal about the lack of colour in the sport since the George Floyd’s death on May 25. Travers, just like Hamilton, has become a beacon of hope and reference to children of colour.

Hamilton may not have got off to the winning start he wanted in the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix, but in the second race of the season at the same venue he opened his account he was happy to see a women of colour to share the stage with him.

He has been one of the world’s most vocal sports stars on the subject of racism and diversity in recent months, and as well as a number of visible actions including taking the knee before each race, and pushing for Mercedes to switch their livery from the traditional silver to black for this season, he also announced last month that he is launching The Hamilton Commission, a new research partnership aimed at making motorsport “as diverse as the complex and multicultural world we live in”.

Lewis Hamilton this week said he expects to be fighting racism all his life and urged Formula 1 to do more to promote the sport’s message of equality.

The world champion said he had to convince some of his fellow drivers to stage another demonstration against racism before the Styrian Grand Prix.