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Mercedes F1 cars - the legendary \\u2018silver arrows\\u2019 - are no longer silver. They\\u2019re painted black this year. A symbolic gesture of support for the \\u2018Black Lives Matter\\u2019 movement, at Mr Hamilton\\u2019s behest.

They will race for the very first time in this new, emblematic non-color this weekend. Mr Hamilton and his team-mate will race in corresponding black overalls this year, as well, and the \\u2018End Racism\\u2019 message will be displayed on both cars.

Mr Hamilton said: "It\\u2019s so important that we seize this moment and use it to educate ourselves whether you are an individual, brand or company to make real meaningful changes when it comes to ensuring equality and inclusivity."

Real and meaningful changes when it comes to ensuring equality and inclusivity. These buzzwords are straight from the social justice warrior handbook, I\\u2019m pretty sure. To which I would respectfully retort:

Equality and inclusivity are essential for any truly free and enlightened society. Ending racism is an admirable objective. But two black cars and matching jumpsuits, plus a slogan, does not constitute \\u2018meaningful change\\u2019 in this area. It just doesn\\u2019t. Or, if it does, I don\\u2019t see how. It does not even illuminate a path, in that broad direction, in my estimation.

This new non-colour scheme is hardly a turnaround for repressed groups anywhere. It\\u2019s just not. It\\u2019s a shallow, virtue-signalling token in my estimation - and you are of course free to make your own determination on this.

Certainly black lives matter. All lives matter. Ending racism is admirable. I got no problem with the theory here - just the execution in this case.

I say this because \\u2026 well, let\\u2019s set the scene. I say it because Mercedes is owned by Daimler AG, in Chermany, which was founded 94 years ago. In 2019 Daimler enjoyed revenue of 173 billion Euros, it produced 3.3 million vehicles and it employed almost 300,000 people.

I find this whole \\u2018charge towards inclusivity \\u2026 led by black race cars and matching jumpsuits\\u2019 \\u2026 this F1 sideshow to be unbelievably shallow and incredibly tokenistic because \\u2026 well, because that\\u2019s the board of management of Daimler. Out of 300,000 people on the payroll, these are the six dudes and duos dudettes who rose to the top.

I\\u2019m not a sociologist, or a genealogist, or a geneticist, or any other kind of expert on race, heritage or ethnicity, so I could be dead wrong, but as far as the superficial optics go \\u2026 it seems fair to say that perhaps Daimler could try just a little bit harder to represent, on the \\u2018diversity\\u2019 front, in the boardroom. If they really do care about this issue.

Because they sure as shit seem to be cut from the same cultural cloth to me. Perhaps they are, in fact, the eight best people for the job. Perhaps there is a wide-ranging cultural diversity in the boardroom, which is less than apparent. And perhaps other non-ability-related criteria factored into their selection, because of a latent and less than enlightened defect in the selection process. I\\u2019ll leave that to you to debate.

Perhaps this is a challenge to be embraced by the Daimler AG board, once they get society more broadly back on track with those vital black race cars and matching driver jumpsuits. I wish them good luck with that, but i do fear it will be ineffective.

If one wanted to make real change here, vis-a-vis inclusivity, I\\u2019d suggest that boardrooms of this nature would not be a bad place to start. So long as the best-qualified people get the job, ultimately.