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Lewis Hamilton says he now has “a mission in life and it’s not about just winning championships and races”, and he believes it’s giving him “more longevity”.
In recent years Lewis Hamilton has started to use his platform as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time, to help bring about social change.
While some suggest his work off the track might cause him to lose focus on his racing, he disagrees.
“This year I’ve not been drawing on past experiences, I’ve been drawing on feeding off this energy of doing this positive work,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“I noticed that last year and it was a part of that last year. Getting on the podium so I can give Breonna [Taylor] that voice, it was a super drive for me.
“So now it’s the work that I’m doing in the background and then I’m turning up and I’m enjoying this job.
“Is it helping me race? I think so, yeah. It’s like my new drive and I feel like it’s giving me more longevity because it’s a lot of work we have to do.
“I feel like it also gives my life real purpose. Racing is not a purpose, it’s something you do.”
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The Briton agrees there have obviously been ups and downs on his journey, but seeing some of the changes that are happening is energizing him.
“Naturally I’ve definitely had moments… people don’t see but it’s not all beautiful. I’m only human and it’s all relative.
“You have up and down days, I have really difficult days where I don’t want to train, you don’t want to continue to push, all these different thoughts that people have I experience those too.
“There’s been definitely been times where I’m like, I don’t know if I can keep going, or maybe there’s something else I want to do. But I don’t think I’d found my purpose until last year.
“Now I feel like I have a mission in life and it’s not about just winning championships and races, that’s all cool, but actually being able to make an impact to help youngsters coming through.
“My niece and nephew will be having conversations at school about engineering and might want to take triple science, and might want to be mixed-race kids that can be an engineer either here or at NASA, wherever.
“I love that,” concluded the seven-time champion.
