DRIVER FOR CHANGE

In an Attitude exclusive for Pride month, Aston Martin's four-time Formula One World Champion, Sebastian Vettel, talks putting his foot down about anti-gay prejudice as Hungary PM Viktor Orbán and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud watch on

- Darren Styles

In 30 years of Attitude magazine, many straight allies have graced the front cover, from Prince William and Dame Joan Collins to Robbie Williams and then Prime Minister Tony Blair, with a handful of sportsmen among them — footballer David Beckham, cricketer James Anderson and swimmer Adam Peaty.

But never a Formula One driver. Until now, with Sebastian Vettel. The four-time World Champion is still the youngest man ever to clinch a title (at 23 years and 134 days in 2010) and is currently racing for Aston Martin in motorsport’s premier series.

It’s little surprise it’s taken so long. Since the first World Championship Formula One event, the British Grand Prix in 1950, there have been 771 drivers of 41 different nationalities and yet only three of them have been openly (make that semiopenly) LGBTQ: Nicha Cabral, who raced four World Championship Formula One Grands Prix in the early 60s, lived a closeted life and finally came out as bisexual at 75; 70s and 80s driver Lella Lombardi, one of only two women to have raced in a World Championship Formula One Grand Prix, was a lesbian; and Mike Beuttler, who raced 28 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix in the early 70s, was a gay man.

A reluctance to speak or behave openly in sport is not unique to Formula One. Our national game has only just made a giant leap for progress with Blackpool forward Jake Daniels coming out at the tender age of 17. In doing so, he has become the only other player in the world to share Josh Cavallo’s crown as an out professional footballer. But there are way more footballers than F1 drivers.

You can’t be what you can’t see, and history tells us that the gateway to LGBTQ visibility within any sport so often starts with a straight ally who is prepared to speak out. Step forward Germany’s Sebastian Vettel.