Motorsport UK proudly supported Accelerate Pride at the British Motor Museum on Friday 2 February.  

Organised by Racing Pride, the movement to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion throughout the motorsport world and its associated industries, Accelerate Pride was the first opportunity for brands to come together in a single space to share best practices and discuss collaborations within the LGBTQ+ community.  

Accelerate Pride assembled stakeholders from across both the motorsport and automotive worlds, including Red Bull Racing, Aston Martin Lagonda, Aston Martin F1 Team and Team BRIT – amongst many others. 

Three panels of influential speakers were hosted over the course of the day. Motorsport UK’s Head of Sustainability, Jessica Runicles, sat on one panel titled ‘LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Motorsport: Creating Opportunities For All’, alongside karter Jess Alexander, Laila Fadli Dokkali, MSc Motorsport Scholar at the Royal Academy of Engineering & Mission 44 ambassador, Team BRIT racer Anji Silva-Vadgama and Will Jones from Sheffield Formula Racing. 

Jessica and her fellow speakers underscored the importance of working with the motorsport community to understand critical topics, plus the value of allyship, understanding and leaving a tangible legacy for others to follow. Jessica in particular discussed the need for the governing body to create policies to create behavioural and cultural change within the UK motorsport landscape.  

Jessica Runicles commented: “At Motorsport UK we understand the need to represent what is happening in the community and to create policies that give a voice and a platform to people who often feel under-represented. We work very closely with Racing Pride to understand what matters and how to then put into a framework that can be used to guide, educate and also hold people to account when needed. We were pleased to support Accelerate Pride to learn from other companies and also share experiences.” 

For more on Motorsport UK’s activities within the LGBTQ+ community, please visit our EDI pages here: Best of Behaviours – Motorsport UK