"They were trying to claw me down to break me down as a man"- Former member of Sebastian Vettel’s F1 car building team accuses Aston Martin of racism

A former Aston Martin F1 garage member has leveled allegations of racism and homophobia against the British team.

Aidan Louw, a 25-year-old man of British and South African descent, has claimed that he was racially abused repeatedly during his time at the Silverstone-based outfit. Louw worked as a laminator, building various parts on the car driven by four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel.

According to Louw, the abuse started after he joined the team as a supplier's agency contractor earlier in February 2022. He shared the harrowing details of his ordeal in a recent interview with Sky News where he said:

“Before I even walked into my working environment, that’s when I was told ‘look if you’ve got a problem with how we speak here, it’s just how we speak’. It went from brownie to darkie - I wasn’t referred to as Aidy… or anything like that. I was called n** n** and brownie - that is what I was referred to. It was towards the end of the duration that I had finally processed what was happening.”

Louw went on to add, saying:

“It had taken me shift cycle after shift cycle of abuse after abuse, words going from n** n** and brownie to outright n***** when I am being called a n***** that’s where I draw the line, that’s where I go no.”

The former Aston Martin team member has also claimed to be on the receiving end of homophobic slurs during his time with the Silverstone-based outfit. Louw said:

“I disclosed to someone that I had a boyfriend in my teen years and that was it - in that split second everything switched… As soon as they found out about that sliver of information that was it, they were trying to claw me down to break me down as a man, as an individual and a human.”

Aston Martin have always maintained that they have a zero-tolerance policy towards racism, homophobia, and discrimination. At the time of writing this, however, the team is yet to respond to the allegations made by Louw.

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Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel condemned racism against Lewis Hamilton, claimed F1 has 'to do a lot' in this regard

Earlier in the season, Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel had condemned the racist epithet used by former F1 driver Nelson Piquet to describe Lewis Hamilton. The German also suggested that F1 had a lot of work to do to eradicate racism from the sport.

Piquet's comments from November 2021 sparked outrage on social media ahead of the 2022 F1 British GP. When asked to share his thoughts on the entire episode, the four-time world champion said:

“Well, I think where to start? I think it’s more than just the recent days, if you are very honest. It is probably what he has been through, and his family has been through, his entire life. Now, any form of abuse, I think, is wrong. So, I think it was great to see that there was so much response from all of the F1 community and so quickly, people, responded and expressed support on the matter, towards Lewis [Hamilton].”

The four-time world champion, who joined Aston Martin at the start of the 2021 season, went on to add, saying:

“I don’t think that there should be any room for this kind of comments, and we still have to do a lot. I think we’ve come a lot further than maybe years ago but it doesn’t help when there’s still these things out there. And people still using inappropriate language and saying wrong things.”

It remains to be seen how the 35-year-old will respond to the allegations of racism, discrimination, and homophobia against his team.