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It’s been almost half a century since a woman scored points in a Formula One race. Nicki Shields writesLella Lombardi finished sixth in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix, scoring half a point. And the fact that no female driver has gone further in the past 49 years raises many questions about the lack of women in motorsport.
Thankfully, this persistent gender gap has not gone unnoticed and we are now witnessing arguably the biggest shift motorsport has ever seen. There is a monumental effort across the paddock to turn things around and create more opportunities for women to work or compete within the sport.
Today, 40 percent of F1 fans are women (up from 32 percent in 2018), so it is now even more important to attract both women and men. However, female drivers, on average, make up only about 10 percent of competitors across all categories. So that is where work needs to be done.
The all-female F1 Academy, run by Susie Wolff, has been transformative. Across seven F1 race weekends, you can now also watch 15 of the world’s top drivers go wheel-to-wheel. Ten of the 15 cars have F1 team liveries, with the remainder sponsored by global brands such as American Express, Puma and Charlotte Tilbury cosmetics. The series helps female drivers progress from F4, F3 and F2 to F1, and gives them support to develop their careers.
F1 Academy driver Abbi Pulling is another formidable force, having won four of the six races so far this season and becoming the first female driver to win a British F4 race in May. But 21-year-old Pulling also proves that talent isn’t always enough in motorsport – she had to withdraw from her second season of F4 in September 2021 due to funding issues. She then competed in the all-female W Series, finishing seventh in 2021 and fourth in 2022, the final season. Pulling joined the F1 Academy where she can now develop and showcase her skills at world level.
There are currently other initiatives that seek to increase the number of women who work or aspire to work in this sport.
F1 Academy: Discover Your Drive is a grassroots karting programme that aims to encourage female participation from the age of eight and is already delivering results. The British Indoor Karting Championship has seen female participation double.
As part of the Champions of the Future mixed-race karting series, the F1 Academy will support nine girls aged between eight and fifteen. The top three finishers in the senior category will be offered a trial at the F1 Academy.
Meanwhile, Girls on Track UK aims to inspire girls and women to believe they have a place in racing and encourage interest in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, which could open up career pathways.
Finally, the More Than Equal initiative, led by founder and Grand Prix winner David Coulthard and chief executive Ali Donnelly, uses a “science-based approach” to find and develop F1’s first female champion. “All the science says there are no boundaries between men and women competing at the same level in F1,” he says.
Walking through the paddock in 2024 is also a contrast to the past, with women in many roles. But there is still a long way to go. Will we see a female F1 driver in the next 10 years? There are certainly no guarantees, but we are in a much better situation today than ever before.
F1 is becoming more equal, but other motorsports are leading the way
He Driving to survive Netflix’s F1 series and an extraordinary 2021 season, which saw one of the greatest rivalries of all time, have had a seismic impact on F1, its popularity, global appeal and the demographics and size of the fan base. writes Laura WinterThe average fan is no longer male by default, and this is important.
In the paddock, improvements are happening and women are now visible and fully accepted in many roles, from hospitality and partnerships to communications, media and ultimately engineering and strategy. In the media realm, women report or lead coverage in most territories, including Finland, Brazil, Italy, the UK and France, and at F1TV, where I am the main presenter.
What is vitally important is that these women are in positions because they have had the opportunity to earn the right to be there, on their own merits, not because it is fashionable or seems equal. Accusations of being the token woman will continue to dog women in motorsport as long as it is seen as a predominantly male space. Although this is slowly changing and no longer seems to be the case in the paddock, someone forgot to warn the social media trolls. And all 20 drivers and 10 team principals are men and F1 cannot get around that.
Pioneering work is being done in other motorsports. Extreme E is an all-electric off-road series that is now in its fourth season. From the start, it was committed to gender equality and became the first series to feature both male and female drivers as teammates.
With equal time behind the wheel and on track, the performance gap between male and female drivers has narrowed by an average of 51 per cent since season one, now averaging 1.5 seconds and female drivers often the fastest on the day.
It is undeniable that change and progress are happening, but it will not happen overnight.