In the summer of 2020, amid the relentless roar of Formula 1 engines at the Styrian Grand Prix, a quiet revolution took place. It was only the second race of the pandemic-delayed season, and the paddock was still adjusting to mask mandates, strict testing protocols, and empty grandstands. There was an eerie quiet, at least until the cars fired up.
That Sunday, Sir Lewis Hamilton took the checkered flag for Mercedes-AMG Petronas and made his way to the podium. But it was who joined him that marked the historic shift. Clad in black and silver team gear and eyes sharp with focus as they always are, Stephanie Travers — the then-26-year-old trackside fluid engineer — climbed upon the pedestal. Raising the Constructors’ Trophy in the air, she became the first Black woman to stand on a Formula 1 podium in the sport’s 70-year history. But for Travers, that moment wasn’t the finish line. It was more like the start of her ever-evolving mission to diversify a sport she loves and to help create an industry that is welcoming and representative of the world she grew up in.
Today, she’s traded her spot on the pit lane for a powerful new role: breaking down the systemic barriers that once stood in her way. As Senior Impact Manager at Mission 44 — the charity founded by seven-time world champion Hamilton — Travers is driving meaningful change by making motorsport and STEM careers more accessible to young people from underrepresented backgrounds.
“I made a way for myself to enter the sport,” she tells me during our interview in Miami ahead of the grand prix. “Now that I’m here, I want to open the door for more young people who look like me.”
Travers' path to Formula 1 was anything but straightforward. As a young woman of color with a passion for engineering, she encountered resistance from the very institutions meant to support her. In her final year of school, her teacher refused to submit her university application, doubting her ability to succeed as an engineer. With her parents’ support, Travers applied anyway. “I think I was really determined to prove that teacher wrong,” she says with a smile.
She graduated with honors from the University of Bradford and followed that with a Master’s in Advanced Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London. Not long after starting at the chemical giant BASF, Travers’s friend sent her a job listing: Mercedes-AMG Petronas was launching a global search for a trackside fluid engineer. “I actually really struggled during the application process,” she admits. “I didn’t believe I was going to get the job.” The word “global” in the title made her close the link the first time. It was only after her friend — and then her father — kept asking if she had applied that she reopened the listing and submitted her application.
Even then, doubt lingered. She’d applied to a role with 7,000 other applicants. “All the way down to the final five, I was the only woman and I thought, ‘this is where the journey ends.’” But she was wrong. “I still remember being told I was selected. I was in Kuala Lumpur at the time,” she says. “I was under NDA, so I couldn’t tell my family. But that excitement from within that I had, and seeing how proud both my parents were of me, meant the world to me, given how much they had sacrificed.”
When I ask if she remembers her first day on the job, she pauses and smiles as if she’s letting all the memories in. “The first day I walked into the Petronas Trackside Lab wearing the team kit, it was just a surreal moment,” she says. “It was a dream I had from being a young girl watching races with my family, and that dream finally materialized.”
She was a huge fan and now she’d landed her dream job. Of course, she was extremely nervous. She left her hotel, arrived at the track, and couldn’t help but look in every single direction. “I had been to races before as a fan, but only in General Admission — I couldn’t afford to be in the grandstands.” Now, she could cross over into the paddock. This was her new office. “I can remember that day so well,” she tells me. “Walking into the garage, seeing the car, and then seeing the lab I was going to be working in. I was greeted by everyone with open arms — from Toto Wolff and Lewis to the mechanics and engineers. That made me feel like this was the space I always wanted to be in.”
“It’s a feeling I will remember for life,” she continues. “It’s up there with the podium moment for me.”
When I ask if her parents’ sacrifice added pressure to succeed, Travers shakes her head gently. “Not added pressure, but rather a guiding north star,” she says. “Having the support from friends and family has given me so much drive and determination to just succeed and achieve.” But yes, she adds with a knowing smile, “at times this comes with added pressure. You never want to let your parents down.”
Her early passion for engineering had been nurtured by afternoons spent in her father and grandfather’s workshop in Zimbabwe. “It taught me so much both technically and about problem-solving, but also about determination and staying curious.” During her three seasons with Mercedes, Travers used those skills while working under immense pressure, analyzing fuel and lubricants in real-time to help optimize race performance. She wasn’t just in the room. She was at the table. And at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix, she stood on the podium. “People think there are only four jobs in F1: driver, engineer, team principal, mechanic,” she explains. “But the reality is, there’s a whole ecosystem behind the scenes.”
In 2021, Sir Lewis Hamilton’s Hamilton Commission released a report on Black representation in U.K. motorsport that highlighted a despairing statistic: Black people made up only about one percent of Formula 1 employees. The ten-month-long study looked into systemic barriers that perpetuated the lack of diversity; the issues spanned the entire pipeline from early education to universities to hiring practices.
Travers had made it to the podium despite all that. But she knew her history-making moment should never have taken so long.
It was this realization that sparked her next move.
There's a certain magic in meeting a person who refuses to be boxed in. Stephanie Travers is one of those people.
She speaks with the calm confidence of someone who has endured the hard road and emerged stronger. But she also radiates a rare kind of joy — a belief that change is not only necessary, but possible.
For now, Travers remains deeply committed to her work at Mission 44. But that doesn’t mean she’s let go of the dream she once declared: to become a team principal in Formula 1.
“The dream is still alive,” she says. “But right now, I’m learning so much — partnerships, contracts, proposal writing. The very things I would’ve gone to do in an MBA, I’m doing on the job.”
Wherever she lands next, her determination is unwavering. “I don’t think I have a ceiling,” she says matter-of-factly. I can’t help but smile because I know she believes it. “I just want to keep working hard and see what each day brings.”
Her story is far from over. But one thing is clear: wherever she goes next, Travers won’t just open doors. She’ll be building new ones. She knows that the future of Formula 1 belongs to those who redesign it.
