Alpine will run rainbow branding on the engine covers of its A522 through June as part of Pride Month, and has also announced a partnership with Racing Pride.
The team, sixth in Formula 1’s standings, says it is working with Racing Pride ‘to understand the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community within the sport’.
It outlined that in a staff survey conducted at the end of 2021 the majority of staff ‘felt respected, valued and appreciated’ in a work environment but a number ‘identified a male-dominated legacy culture with a strong culture of banter’.
Alpine says initiatives are in place to begin to counter this while it has also established a diversity and inclusion committee.
“For so long, motorsport has not been representative of the diversity we see in wider society,” said Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi.
“There are various reasons, but we need to look forward and challenge the biases we see. Our journey starts here.
“The LGBTQ+ community has lacked visible representation and support within our industry, and we need to change this.
“We want Alpine to be an open, inclusive and productive place to work and for our employees to feel happy and supported in their workplace.
“A happy environment gives greater creativity and that is exactly what we need to foster as we move forward.
“To do so, we need to fully understand the challenges some of the under-represented groups in motorsport face. Pride Month is a good place to start; we know that we need to do more to give this community a voice and representation.”
Doing it in Saudi, or Qatar, or China, would be more worthwhile. Places where it may make some kind of difference.
Difference in what? Normalizing a mental illness?
Gross.