Formula 1 accelerates its engines to incorporate women into the top category

The Formula 1 It tries to become feminized, with new initiatives and competitions that offer new opportunities for young women to access a sport that is theoretically mixed, but in practice largely masculine.

In more than 70 editions of the World Championship, only two women have started a Grand Prix: Maria Theresa of Philippis in 1958 and Lella Lombardi in 1975 and 1976.

Although her presence on the grid has sparked debates for years, the truth is that in almost half a century no woman has reached the elite as a starter.

Although some of them, such as Susie Wolffformer test driver for the Williams team, have played key roles from the shadows.

An absence that the Scot explains by the low presence of girls at the base: “Only a handful of young women practice this sport.”

“So we must increase the talent pool and to do this we must raise people’s awareness and create opportunities,” he explains to the French agency AFP.

For this reason, in 2023 a competition reserved for female pilots was launched. Called F1 Academy, it starts with the challenge of leading female drivers to the upper echelons of the sport of motorsport.

Unlike this year, starting next year the seven races of this new championship will be organized on Formula 1 weekends. In addition, each of the ten teams present in the category will participate and will name a female driver,” a good thing,” estimates Marta García, the first F1 Academy champion.

“It’s what we need (…) to make everyone see that we are there and that we also drive”continues the Spanish woman.

The championship succeeds the W-Series, a competition that is also 100% female and which, due to lack of resources, ended in 2022.

But unlike the W-Series, “we are incredibly lucky to have Formula 1 behind us,” recognizes Wolff, since it is Formula One, promoter of the discipline, that is at the origin of the F1 Academy.

When its creation was announced at the end of 2018, several voices were raised against the organization of a 100% women’s championship, considered a good idea but counterproductive.

Pilot Sophia Floersch had been very critical at the time, stating that this was “going in the wrong direction.”

“I still think the same thing” regarding the F1 Academy, acknowledges the German, the only woman present this season in Formula 3, the prelude to Formula 2, which opens the doors to the queen division.

“In college, women and men study together because it is normal. In our sport, it should also be normal for men and women to compete together. Why make a series only for women?”he asks in dialogue with the French agency.

Although women have access to all categories of motorsports on paper, it is obvious that their presence is almost negligible compared to men and that the difference becomes greater as the steps are climbed.

Faced with this imbalance, the teams have begun to move. In 2021, Ferrari welcomed the first young woman to its prestigious academy, the Dutch-Belgian Maya Weug.

Alpine, for its part, announced last year that it would launch a program aimed at increasing the weight of women, especially engineers and pilots. A decision applauded by Floersch, a member of the Alpine academy: “this is an important support (…) the objective is to bring more women to different fields of sport so that the representation of genders in Alpine evolves.”

“Many efforts have been made,” acknowledges Pierre Gasly. The 27-year-old Frenchman, in F1 since 2017, also said that he “would not be surprised” to drive alongside a woman before the end of his career.

Susie Wolff is along the same lines, who hopes to see it “between now and 2030.” Being the only woman to have competed in all series (F3, F2 and F1), Sophia Floersch is in pole position to reach the elite of her sport, “in three or five years,” she says.