All eyes will be on Abu Dhabi this weekend as the Formula One machine rolls into town for the final, title deciding, race of the season. After ten wins from eighteen races over eight months, fifty five laps of the desert track are all that stand between Lewis Hamilton and his second Formula One Drivers’ Championship. By Sunday evening we’ll know if he’s either reclaimed the title or effectively been cheated out of it by the terrible, gimmicky decision to award double points for the final race (not that we’re biased in any way).
One person guaranteed to be watching on is his brother, Nicolas, who has Cerebral Palsy and is one of a relatively small number of racing drivers with disabilities. Partly because of who is brother, but also just because of how good he is (Nicolas won the British Simulation Championships before racing in the real thing and used to regularly beat Lewis at racing video games), Nicolas is probably the most high profile disabled driver in the country and uses his website (www.nicolashamilton.com) to share his journey.
Initially he wanted to make sure that the spotlight on him focussed purely on his driving (difficult enough with such a famous sibling) and not his disability, but in 2013 Nic decided to start the website to “inspire, and show others how obstacles can be overcome when chasing your dreams”. His story can open a lot of eyes and he’s shown there’s so much you can do, regardless of physical disability, when you put your mind to it.
Showing that less able people can (and want to) take part in motor sports is an important barrier to break down. Too often, you sense that people feel people with disabilities need to be kept away from danger and stay in controlled, extra safe environments – essentially wrapped up in cotton wool. This is exactly the opposite of how you want to feel when you’re racing in a car and you want to feel as close to the edge as possible. There’s an adrenalin rush from this feeling that less able people want to access and enjoy as much as anyone. So it’s about breaking down that tired old preconception. Every time Nic Hamilton races he helps to do just that. And he’s not the only person (tomorrow we’ll look at some of the others).
The good news is that motor sports are beginning to open up for drivers with disabilities. In 1987 The British Motor Sport Association for the Disabled was set up to assist drivers with disabilities to compete in all forms of motorsport. In 1991, following many discussions with the Motor Sports Association, an assessment procedure was followed and conducted at Silverstone for the first time. Since then over 200 competitors with a variety of disabilities and medical conditions have earned the license to compete in Racing, Rallying and Karting.
These days there is an assessment programme, under which licence applicants attend a racing, stage rally or karting school to assess their competence and safety behind the wheel. This includes a test to evaluate how quickly a driver can get out of their competition vehicle – in almost every form of motor sport, because of safety issues (your own and the marshals’, spectators’ and other drivers’) you need to be able to exit the vehicle unaided. They advise giving them a call and having a chat before you take the next step.
BMSAD chairman David Butler, a triple amputee since the age of 11 and now a club racer, who set up the criteria for the Assessment Programme, says: “Our panel is there to encourage people to go racing, not to try to stop them. We don’t want to risk the lives of marshals, who are fantastic people and would do anything to get a driver out in the event of an accident.”
Another good place to check out for anyone interested in taking up motor sport is Motor Sport Endeavour. It’s a club set up to involve people with a wide range of disabilities in a programme of car and motorcycle events and experiences including rallying, hill climbs, auto tests, navigation, trials, visits to Motor Sport Centres and employment in the industry. The more you look, the more you find that if you can drive you should be able to take part in motor sport.
Taking up motor sport is still a challenge for people with disabilities but as Nic Hamilton and others have shown it is not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle. There are companies out there bring motor racing to the less able community. As an inherently dangerous sport there are always going to be more hoops to jump through to get started than in other, safer sports but if you can get through the red tape you may well end up seeing the chequered flag wave. Let’s hope that when the elder Hamilton brother does so this Sunday, he does so as the F1 Champion!