Mercedes have announced a new partnership with the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers UK (AFBE-UK) to help increase accessibility to careers in engineering.
F1's world champions, who have committed to making their own workforce more diverse and launched the Accelerate 25 initiative, say the partnership will focus on five strategic areas: advisory, recruitment, education, work experience and events.
"We are delighted to have joined the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers UK," said Paul Mills, Mercedes-Benz GP's chief people officer.
"As part of our Accelerate 25 programme and commitment to improving diversity within our team and our sport, we have begun to identify organisations who can provide valuable knowledge and support as we raise our efforts on this journey.
"AFBE-UK's wealth of experience in working with organisations and engineering professionals to encourage and support engineers from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds into engineering is a perfect fit as we look to widen our appeal and increase the diversity of the talent within our team."
AFBE-UK, which was established in 2007, works to inspire people of Black and minority ethnic origin to study engineering, to support those who aspire to be engineers, to promote engineering in schools and to increase diversity within the UK's engineering workforce.
Mercedes' Accelerate 25 programme, launched last December, is a five-year scheme with the aim of ensuring at least 25 per cent of all new employees at the team come from under-represented groups in each year up to and including 2025.