The Mercedes F1 team says its efforts to instill more diversity into its workforce through its dedicated 'Accelerate 25' programme are bearing fruit.
The Brackely squad set up the special five-year programme to improve diversity and inclusion within its ranks in December 2020.
After the completion of a full year of Accelerate 25, the latter has led to 38% of new team members joining the team from under-represented groups, with female employees rising from 12% to 14% of its workforce while employees from minority ethnic groups have risen from 3% to 6%.
However, due to F1's stringent budget cap restrictions, the bulk of the hirings have been channeled towards the team's Business Support functions rather than into its Engineering and STEM-related fields.
"In the first year of our Accelerate 25 programme, we have made promising progress to develop a more diverse and inclusive team," commented Mercedes team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff.
"Through detailed internal scrutiny and with the guidance of our excellent partners, we have been able to take the first steps on our journey in enabling access to STEM education and careers and building a pipeline of talent who we hope may consider joining us in the future.
"To see a small but significant increase in our numbers of team members from under-represented groups is a sign that we are making progress, however we remain acutely conscious that this is a long-term commitment and look forward to building on those initial steps."
Paul Mills, the Mercedes team's Chief People Officer was equally encouraged by the initial success of Accelerate 25, but insisted it was "only the beginning of our journey".
"As we look back on our first full year of Accelerate 25, I feel very proud of the enthusiastic engagement of so many of our team-mates who have volunteered their time to support training, workshops, networking, mentoring and various other events," said Mills.
"The team have enthusiastically grasped the opportunity to learn and reach out to engage with under-represented groups helping to inspire and encourage them to consider STEM careers.
"Whilst we have made a good start, there is still much to do, and this is only the beginning of our journey to make our team and our sport more inclusive and diverse."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
