Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton has backed Naomi Schiff after the Sky Sports presenter and former racing driver received criticism on Twitter.

Schiff has an abundance of racing experience, having competed in prototype, GT and single seater cars during her career.

She won the 2014 Clip Cup Asia Championship title, the 2018 KTM GT4 X-Bow Battle Championship title and took second place in the 2018 24 Hours of Nurburgring, before competing in the inaugural W Series in 2019.

The 28-year-old has joined the Sky Sports team as an F1 presenter this year, providing fresh insight alongside the likes of Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert.

Schiff also co-presents the show Any Driven Monday, which is broadcast on YouTube and Sky every Monday after a F1 race weekend.

Despite her years of experience in racing, Schiff has still been subject to criticism on social media.

One Twitter post, which suggested she had only been picked to present for Sky Sports because of her gender or race, caught Schiff’s attention in particular, and she replied with three yawning emojis.

Although the original post has since been deleted, Hamilton took to Twitter to defend Schiff.

“Naomi is an ex-professional racing driver & totally qualified to give her opinion as part of the Sky team,” he said.

"She’s been a great asset since joining & we should welcome more representative broadcasting with open arms. Still have a long way to go to change these attitudes in sport.”

Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, has often spoken about the need to improve diversity in motorsport.

He called for greater female representation in F1’s officiating team in February, for example.

“I want to see more women in the stewards’ room, last year [we had] maybe one or two,” Hamilton said. “It would be awesome to have a male and female as the two race directors.”