LA bastion of male heterosexuality, Formula One is a sport that has been associated with passion for many years. The drivers live a glamorous high life with beautiful women, so much so that they are intrinsically linked to the image of F1. Change is happening for the better, but as some in the sports community have pointed out, it’s been a long process.
Former driver Ralf Schumacher came out as gay on Sunday, becoming the third driver to do so since the F1 championship began in 1950. The younger brother of Michael, who competed in the competition from 1997 to 2007, he was married to former model Cora Schumacher for 14 years, from whom they separated in 2015. Rumors about his personal life still persist.
F1 has always marketed itself as a gladiator, with a fast-race and party-hard style, the latter of which it rightly wants to do with beautiful women. How evident this phenomenon is in the now-defunct Grid Girls, there’s no doubt that scantily clad models holding grid panels were a sexualized norm for decades. In fact, it actually forms part of the F1 fantasy, and even part of the ideals the sport espouses.
Of course, this is bound to feel equally oppressive to anyone who doesn’t fit this narrow heterosexual stereotype. However, even as the world changes, F1 is probably moving slower than most companies.
Matt Bishop is a former editor of F1 Racing magazine who joined McLaren in 2007 as communications director. PR agency Diagonal Communications, during which time he handled four different world champions: Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.
He was the first openly gay man in the F1 paddock and throughout his life he was unashamed of his sexuality. When I interviewed him last year for my book F1 Racing Confidential, he recalled an extraordinary incident that occurred shortly after he joined McLaren.
“I do have some homophobia, most of it behind my back, but there was one driver who I won’t name who habitually called me a ‘fat faggot’ to my face,” he said .
At one point the driver shouted abuse across the paddock. Bishop ignored it, but the driver, Alex Wurz, confronted the man and reprimanded him in no uncertain terms. Wurz and Bishop are now close friends and Wurz is president of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.
Under this forthright leadership, Formula 1 has made a concerted effort to improve its equality, diversity and inclusion in recent years, and these initiatives have been felt since being taken over by Liberal Media. What Bishop went through is unthinkable now and there is still a long way to go, but attitudes have fundamentally changed.
Bishop is also one of the founders of Racing Pride, an organization dedicated to promoting LGBTQ+ inclusion in all motorsport. Its goals and F1 efforts have received public support from drivers such as Hamilton and Vettel, as well as teams and the FIA.
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They have made changes. There are so many LGBTQ+ people working in F1 now, and from a driver’s perspective, there’s much less of a sense today that coming out will have the harmful effects it did before.
This was definitely a major issue in the past. The previous most high-profile racing driver was Hurley Haywood, who had a highly successful sports car career, including winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and the 24 Hours of Daytona five times. Throughout his career, Haywood was inevitably photographed with female models, but it was an open secret in the paddock that he was gay. But as he admits, he’s still afraid to say it publicly, fearing he’ll lose fans and his career.
The 76-year-old retired in 2012 and came out as gay in 2018 after a young fan told him he had been bullied his whole life because he was gay and felt “worthless”. Haywood told him to be himself. “I told him it’s not what you are, it’s who you are. That’s World Health Organization People remember,” he said. Years later, the boy’s mother thanked Haywood, saying he saved her son’s life. This gave Haywood the encouragement he needed to come out publicly in the hope that doing so would change more lives.
Schumacher’s equally public decision is expected to have a similar impact on drivers and competitors in the racing world. As Haywood pointed out in 2019, change is coming, and while it won’t be easy, it’s coming. “Motorsport is constantly evolving,” he said. “I think those barriers that were holding back are gradually being removed.”
