Red Bull engineer Calum Nicholas has opened up about a confidential chinwag he had with Lewis Hamilton.

The fierce rivalry between Hamilton and Red Bull ace Max Verstappen reached fever pitch during the nail-biting 2021 drivers’ championship fight – a contest Verstappen ultimately clinched before cruising to three consecutive titles, leaving Hamilton still in pursuit of an historic eighth triumph.

During those heated days, you would have been gobsmacked to see one of Verstappen’s Red Bull allies working with their Mercedes rivals. Yet, Nicholas confesses feeling ‘humbled’ when Hamilton sought him out to chat about his experiences as an ethnic minority in the paddock.

Hamilton, now at Ferrari, set up the Hamilton Commission in 2021 to delve into motorsport’s diversity dilemma. With Nicholas being one of just a few black men working in Formula 1, his insights were important to the seven-time champion.

“When Lewis first asked if I would come and have a chat about the Hamilton Commission and my own experiences, it is quite a humbling thing to have a multiple world champion interested in how you found the same environment, or at least a similar environment,” Nicholas told The Times.

“It was quite an honour, I must say. There is not a great deal that makes me think, ‘Oh my God, this is really important,’ but that certainly did. I remember leaving that meeting feeling really inspired, that ultimately Lewis took a massive risk, he used his personal profile, he used his leverage and he forced the whole industry to take note,” reports the Express.

Having kickstarted his F1 journey as a Marussia mechanic in 2011, Nicholas devoted nearly four years to the team. He transitioned to Red Bull in 2015 and has since ascended to become a senior engine technician, working on Verstappen’s car.

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However, Nicholas hopes his accomplishments don’t overshadow the pressing need for increased diversity at the pinnacle of the sport. “It is a difficult one,” he added.

“Because my ethnicity isn’t something I did, it is just me. It is a hard one to cope with and it took me a little while to appreciate that a huge part of trying to make the paddock a more inclusive place is just giving people representation.”

“What I didn’t want was for people to say, ‘Oh well, F1 must be really inclusive, look at Calum.’ My success within the sport, in many ways, was against the odds.”

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