Lewis Hamilton's F1 team urged to drop sponsorship deal with Grenfell Tower cladding firm

Michael Gove has urged Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 team to rethink its sponsorship deal with the company that provided combustible cladding for Grenfell Tower.

Kingspan has been named as an official partner of Hamilton’s Mercedes-AMG Petronas team, with its branding set to appear on the car during the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix this weekend.

Mr Gove said he would be writing to Mercedes urging it to “reconsider” the partnership, while survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno called the decision by the team “truly shocking”.

The ongoing public inquiry into the disaster has heard that prior to the 2017 tragedy, in which 72 people perished, Kingspan changed the composition of its plastic foam boards which were used in the tower. The inquiry heard tests showed the new boards burned “like a raging inferno”.

'A total disregard for human life'

The survivors’ group Grenfell United said on Wednesday, in an open letter to Toto Wolff, the F1 team boss: “This week’s announcement of your new partnership with Kingspan is truly shocking.

“Kingspan played a central role in inflicting the pain and suffering that we feel today, and there must be a degree of public censure for Kingspan’s recklessness and carelessness for human life.”

The group went on to allege that the company was “focused solely on profit with a total disregard for human life”.

Posting on Twitter, Mr Gove, said: “Deeply disappointed that [MercedesAMGF1] are accepting sponsorship from cladding firm Kingspan while the Grenfell Inquiry is ongoing.

“I will be writing to Mercedes to ask them to reconsider. The Grenfell community deserves better.”

Mr Hamilton, a seven-time Formula 1 world champion, himself has previously expressed support for all those who suffered in the disaster.

He took to his Instagram three years to the day after the incident to say: “Remembering the 72 souls we lost and their loved ones, and everyone affected by this tragedy.”

Plastic-filled aluminum cladding panels made by a different company, Arconic, were the main cause of the rapid spread of the Grenfell Tower fire but the inquiry heard the Kingspan boards “contributed to the rate and extent” of the flames.

A spokesman for Kingspan said the disaster “should never have happened”.

He added: “Kingspan played no role in the design of the cladding system on Grenfell Tower, where its K15 product constituted approximately five per cent of the insulation and was used as a substitute product without Kingspan’s knowledge in a system that was not compliant with the building's regulations.”

A spokesman for Mercedes stressed that drivers were not involved in sponsorship decisions, and said: “Our partner Kingspan has supported, and continues to support, the vitally important work of the inquiry to determine what went wrong and why in the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

"Our new partnership announced this week is centred on sustainability, and will support us in achieving our targets in this area.”