Press release from BWT Alpine F1 Team…

BWT Alpine F1 Team marks Pride Month

• BWT Alpine F1 Team announces partnership with Racing Pride, the initiative to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion through motorsport and will mark Pride Month with symbols of allyship throughout June.
• Through this partnership BWT Alpine F1 Team aims to understand the challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community in motorsport and how it can both create an inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ team members and play a role in advancing progress across the sport.
• BWT Alpine F1 Team will work with Racing Pride on a number of initiatives to ensure our pathways for attracting emerging talent are welcoming to
• LGBTQ+ people and will use Pride Month to show support and raise awareness and for the LGBTQ+ community.
• Alpine A522 cars will run with LGBTQ+ rainbow branding throughout the month of June, with other nods to the LGBTQ+ community throughout the team’s sites.

BWT Alpine F1 Team is proud to mark Pride Month with symbols of allyship throughout June. It also confirms a partnership with Racing Pride, the initiative to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion through motorsport. Alpine is working with Racing Pride to understand the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community within the sport, to combat prejudice and make Alpine a safe and welcoming workplace regardless of sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity.

The first step has been a consultation across key areas of the company, from the top down, to learn of the challenges and prejudices within the Alpine workplace. Racing Pride has given the team’s existing policies a thorough review and has worked with various departments to guide on future policies to improve the team’s diversity and inclusion far beyond Pride Month.

An early indicator is found in an Alpine staff survey conducted at the end of 2021, which identified that while the majority of staff felt respected, valued and appreciated in their environment, a number identified a male dominated legacy culture with a strong culture of banter.
Initiatives are now in place to start to counter this and encourage empathy by helping team members to understand and appreciate the experiences of different communities.

Earlier this year the team also established a diversity & inclusion committee, composed of a range of staff from differing backgrounds, including the LGBTQ+ community, black and diverse ethnic communities, women and single-parent families, to acknowledge the importance of individualities to provide an open and welcoming workplace. It aims to identify key areas of progress needed to build and maintain a positive and inclusive workplace and ensure future generations have access to equal opportunities to enter motorsport.

Alpine will use Pride Month to recognise and celebrate the contributions of members of our workforce who are LGBTQ+. Top management of the company have already undergone a series of training meetings to educate themselves on the challenges and conversations around inclusion, while the team’s HR department is being led by Racing Pride in adopting inclusive policies that help to make members of the LGBTQ+ community feel valued and able to bring their whole selves to their work.

Symbols of allyship, such as staff being given the opportunity to wear lanyards in rainbow colours and rainbow pins should they wish to show their support, will enable individuals across the team to become part of our celebration of Pride, while the team’s Enstone base will also display the rainbow flag on flagpoles outside the factory. The team’s A522 F1 cars will also proudly display the rainbow colours on bodywork for all races within June.

Laurent Rossi, Alpine CEO:
“For so long, motorsport has not been representative of the diversity we see in wider society. 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.”

Richard Morris, Racing Pride Co-Founder:

“Racing Pride is excited to confirm a partnership with BWT Alpine F1 Team. It is inspiring to reflect on the progress we have seen, and been part of, within the Formula One paddock in recent times, with more teams beginning on the journey of creating, as well as communicating, LGBTQ+ inclusion. We have been working hard with Alpine behind the scenes to make sure that this commitment to the LGBTQ+ community extends well beyond pride month and is about far more than external publicity. As with all of our partnerships, the focus for us is on creating lasting positive change: providing education, cultivating truly inclusive environments, and sincerely communicating together a commitment to all members of the LGBTQ+ community within and beyond the sport that they are valued, they are respected, and they are welcome.”