LONDON, December 3 (Reuters) – UK Housing Secretary Michael Gove and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have urged Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Formula One team to reconsider a sponsorship deal with a company linked to the 2017 London disaster .
Reigning Master Mercedes this week announced a partnership with Kingspan (KSP.I), an Irish company that makes high performance insulation and siding products, including some that are used on Grenfell.
Their branding can be seen on the car that seven-time world champion Hamilton will drive at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix this weekend.
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Survivors group Grenfell United said in a letter to team principal Toto Wolff posted on Twitter that the announcement of the partnership was “really shocking” and urged Mercedes to end the relationship.
The Grenfell fire killed 72 people, with flammable cladding on the block of flats identified as being central to the flames’ rapid spread.
Gove said on Twitter that he was “deeply disappointed” that Mercedes accepted Kingspan’s sponsorship while an investigation was ongoing.
“I’m going to write to Mercedes to ask them to reconsider. The Grenfell community deserves better,” he said.
Gove’s opposition colleague Lisa Nandy welcomed his “quick criticism” but urged him to adopt the same stance and return party political donations from developers responsible for buildings with similar cladding.
Mercedes said the partnership was geared towards sustainability and Kingspan had “endorsed and continued to support the vital work of the investigation to find out what went wrong and why in the Grenfell Tower tragedy.”
Kingspan said in a separate statement that it played no part in the design of the Grenfell Tower cladding system, where its K15 product made up about 5% of the insulation.
It added that this “was used as a replacement product in a non-building code system without the knowledge of Kingspan.
“The new partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team reflects the ambitious sustainability goals of both organizations.”
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Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Louise Heavens
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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