Race to find first woman champion of Formula One moves up a gear with development programme
Barriers for women include limited access to motorsports, cultural and structural biases, sponsorship gaps and lack of role models
A dozen girls whizzed around a karting track during a special test day in Nottingham, England, part of a pioneering drive to draw women into motorsports and maybe even race to the top in male-dominated Formula One.
Italian Lella Lombardi was the last woman to compete in a F1 Grand Prix in 1976, and the absence of women on the circuit is linked to young girls’ limited exposure to motorsports, according to gender parity organisations.
More Than Equal, a non-profit that supports women drivers, said girls start karting two years later than boys on average. Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, for example, started karting aged just eight.
“We know that the pathway for female drivers hasn’t successfully got a woman into Formula One competitively in the last 50 years,” More Than Equal’s head of driver development, Lauren Forrow, said.
That means girls are “not thriving within” the current system, she said.
The organisation has pledged to “make history” by training a woman not just to compete but to win.