One day, I was sitting on the couch and watching F1. Suddenly my mom came and asked me a bit about the race. Then she asked “is there any female driver for this kind of sport?” and at that time, to be honest with you, I had no idea. Then it got me thinking is there any female driver? Or even motorsport competition made specifically for women? Think like women’s football or women’s basketball for example, sure they have more familiarity to a lot of people. But what about motorsport, particularly F1?
Later I found out that Susie Wolff, wife of Mercedes AMG F1 Team Principal & CEO Toto Wolff, is a former female driver, and I was like… wow… this is cool. If you look up her name on Google it shows “Scottish former motorsports racing driver.” She started in karting then graduated to Formula Renault and Formula Three. She even signed a contract with Williams in Formula 1 as their development driver. Susie Wolff then made history as the first woman to take part in a Formula 1 race weekend in 22 years by driving in practice at the 2014 Formula 1 British Grand Prix. Cool right? And turns out, Susie Wolff isn’t the only one.
Female Formula 1 driver
As I said before, Susie Wolff is one example of female F1 driver which means there are a lot more out there. But who’s the first one? That would be Maria Teresa de Filippis.
The Italian driver set her foot in F1 for the first time in 1958. She started three races, in Belgium, Portugal and Italy and got her best result of finishing in 10th in Spa-Francorchamps (bleacherreport.com). De Filippis was banned by the racing director of the French Grand Prix in that year. The racing director told de Filippis and I quote “The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s” which was… not very nice to hear, no?
Since de Filippis retired in 1959, there were only four other female drivers involved in F1. Lella Lombardi, the second female driver in F1 (literally) entered the competition from 1974–1976. She has competed the most with 17 entries and started 12 of them. She also became the first ever female F1 driver to score points in a race by finishing sixth in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix (sportingnews.com). Divina Galica and Desire Wilson are the next on the list, and Giovanna Amati closed the list for female drivers competing in F1.
With a relatively short list, is it even possible for women to become an F1 driver? Well guess what, there are no rules that goes against women competing in F1 so, yeah! Women can become an F1 driver.
What about now?
Earlier this year, F1 has launched their new program called F1 Academy, a new all-female racing series, but before there was the W Series, which also an all-female racing series. W Series began in 2019 and sadly had to end its journey in 2022 due to financial reasons.
Funding wasn’t the only flaw of W Series. The championship unfortunately didn’t have enough track time or proper racing team, a problem in which made the graduates of W Series didn’t have enough experience to take the next-step in the motorsport world. But that doesn’t mean W Series was a total flop. As always, there’s a silver-lining to every story, as well as W Series.
W Series has opened the door to other possibilities for the graduates. For instance, Jamie Chadwick, the three-time W Series champion is now competing in Indy NXT, a primary feeder series of IndyCar. Or Alice Powell and Naomi Schiff who are now become a part of F1 broadcast coverage, Powell in Channel 4 and Schiff in Sky Sports. Not to mention, W Series led the way for F1 Academy. With W Series has come to an end, F1 Academy is here ready to take the mission to the next level, all to provide a proper all-female racing series.
F1 Academy days
F1 Academy, under Susie Wolf as Managing Director, was born with the same spirit as W Series: to give female drivers more access to track time, preparations such as mental, technical, and physical, and of course racing. In 2023 F1 Academy will race in seven different locations and will conclude its first year in the 2023 F1 US GP this October.
There are five teams featured in F1 Academy: ART Grand Prix, Campos Racing, Rodin Carlin, MP Motorsport, and PREMA Racing with each team consist of three drivers. And yes, they’re all females!
Each weekend, the drivers will have three races, plus practice and two qualifying sessions. And just like F1, the qualifying will set how the grid looks like. Q1 or Qualifying 1, determined the grid fore Race 1 and Race 3 will be based on Q2 results. What race 2 would look like is the top 8 drivers from Q1 but makes it reversed. Will there be any points for the drivers? Of course! The drivers finishing in top 10 and top 8 (for Race 2) are granted with points.
The existence of female drivers in Formula 1 may not be as much as the male drivers. Which is why competitions like F1 Academy and the-former-W series are there to give female drivers more opportunities on the track. The hope is for female drivers to gain more experience in order to advance to F3, F2, and eventually make another appearance in F1. It is still a long road to take for female drivers to set their foot in the top tier of the Formulas but baby steps count right? It’s the little thing that matters and begins all of this. Who knows, maybe in the very-very near future we will have another de Fillipis and Lombardi, maybe even a world champion. Interesting, right?
