Where are the women?
Lella Lombardi in practice for the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix. Photography by Bert Verhoeff.
Hamilton celebrating his first Formula One championship title in 2008. Photography by Diogo Dubiella.
There is much to love about Formula 1. The excitement, the rivalries, the danger, the eye-wateringly fine margins that can cause, for example, the 8-time World Constructors’ Champion suddenly struggling to finish in the top ten (looking at you, Mercedes). However, as a female Formula 1 fan, there are still facets of the sport that leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Take Christian Horner, the Team Principal of Red Bull, one of the largest teams in Formula 1. When asked about the impact of the hit Netflix documentary series, ‘Drive to Survive’, Horner suggests that the show is bringing in a new generation of female fans, specifically “because of all these great-looking drivers”. Even when asked to clarify at a subsequent press conference Horner did not do himself any favours, again emphasising the allure of these young and exciting drivers to female fans. Every female Formula 1 fan I know has a reason other than the drivers’ looks as to why they love the sport. And yet, this opinion is still rife throughout the world of F1; you only need to go to the comments section of some articles that talk about Horner’s statements to see this. These attitudes to female fans permeate the sport.
And in terms of female drivers, the picture is no less bleak. It is exactly 30 years since a woman last entered a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Even then, Giovanna Amati was unable to qualify for the race. The last time a woman actually competed in a race was Lella Lombardi in 1976. Over 900 drivers have competed in F1 races since the formula’s inception in 1950, and only two of these are women: Lombardi, and Maria Teresa de Filippis in 1958-9. Lombardi remains the only woman to ever score in a Formula 1 race, receiving half a point in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix.
So, why is there such a lack of female presence in the world of Formula 1? It is not to do with the regulations; whilst there were some early bans on female participation, on the whole women have always had the right to compete on the same platform as men. One of the main contributors to the lack of female drivers is money. The sport has always been an expensive one given the mechanical intricacies of these cars, and the thousands of highly skilled employees working in factories around the world to produce the most perfect rendition of racing engineering that they can.
In recent years however the sport has boomed, becoming a global business worth billions of dollars. Toto Wolff, the team principal of the 8-time World Champions, Mercedes, estimates that the cost of jumping through the hoops to reach F1, starting off with karting and then working one’s way through the formulas (typically F4/Formula Renault, then F3, F2, and ultimately F1) could be around €8 million. Naturally then, it is an extremely exclusive sport, but it seems like women have even more hurdles to try and jump over. For many drivers to afford this, they have to be funded by large, conservative sponsors, who back drivers that they want to see as world champions, i.e. the next Michael Schumachers and Lewis Hamiltons. There is no precedent for backing a female racing driver, and for them it is not worth the million-dollar risk.
Another cause for the lack of female participation in Formula 1 is opportunity. All of the current drivers would have first started karting when they were around 5 or 6. They would have needed either exceptional raw talent to catch the eye of a sponsor early on, or wealthy parents who were happy to pay for the best quality karts and training. Women are rarely given the same training from the same age; they tend to start training much later than men, and it is much harder for them to find sponsors or teams that would take a chance on them. This could also be owing to the problem of representation; when young children watch motorsport, it is a lot easier for a boy to picture himself doing that, as he is watching people who look similar to him. Girls have few role models in the sport, so they don’t realise it is something they have an opportunity to try until much later.
Right out of the gate, women are on the back foot, attempting to compete with only a fraction of the amount of training and testing. And because of the lack of female drivers over the years, F1 chassis (i.e. the main body and framework of the cars) are designed with male physiques in mind. This all becomes a vicious cycle, as it fuels the misogynistic arguments that women are worse drivers than men and that women’s physiques can’t handle the immense physical pressures of motor-racing. We know these things are not true; there are plenty of female drivers out there who are proving that they have the capabilities to compete at the highest level – they just do not have access to the funding, or the equipment, and it seems the sport is not yet ready to welcome them.
For a sport that is constantly striving for the newest and most progressive engineering inventions and that prides itself on pushing for a new generation of 100% sustainable fuels, it still appears to be extremely traditional when it comes to gender equality. Grid girls – the female models that were used to promote the sponsors and to create ‘tunnels’ for the drivers to pass through – were only banned from the sport 4 years ago, in 2018. It seemed to be a decision made in response to the heightened awareness of sexual harassment at the time, largely owing to the #MeToo Movement, rather a decision made because of any outstanding belief in the unhealthy messages that these grid girls presented.
I can remember watching Formula 1 as a young girl, and wondering why the only women that I could see were dressed in very little, and seemed to be there for no other reason than the enjoyment of the male audiences. Unsurprisingly, the decision to get rid of grid girls was faced with a lot of backlash and criticism, as they were seen as a traditional custom within a male-dominated sport, and the ban was labeled as ‘political correctness gone mad’.
Still to this day there are debates about whether grid girls should come back, with many former grid girls saying themselves that they loved their jobs, and that it was a large source of income to lose. The problem is that these women were (and would still be, if they came back today) some of the only visible women in F1. It emphasises to fans (and makes impressions on young girls) that the only thing women could be good for in this industry is to stand there, wearing very little, and look pretty. Women’s role in the sport would be entirely focused on their ability to be looked at. If we had female drivers, female race engineers, female strategists, then having grid girls wouldn’t be so bad, as there would be a plethora of representation, and a plethora of examples of all of the different aspirations women can have.
It is important to note that there are women who work in F1, and have been for years. Whether that’s on the commercial side or within the legal teams, or even on the pitwall - for example, Ruth Buscombe is the senior strategy engineer at Alfa Romeo, and Stephanie Travers is the trackside fuel engineer for Mercedes. The issue is that not enough is being done to showcase the history of women’s contribution to the sport, so the idea of F1 as a male-dominated, elitist sport perseveres. These women themselves have talked about the lack of female role models that they had in F1, and are doing what they can to overcome this bias, and to bring more young women into the sport.
Speaking of Stephanie Travers, she recently stood on the podium alongside Sir Lewis Hamilton, becoming the first Black woman to stand on the winner’s step in the sport’s 70-year history. Lewis himself is the only Black driver in F1 history - and is also the most decorated champion of all time. He has been the guiding influence on the sport’s recent push towards more diversity, openly speaking about the racism he faced as a young karter, and that he still experiences at the top level of motor-racing. He knows that these institutional barriers are still firmly in place, and formed the Hamilton Commission which aims to address this underrepresentation of Black people in the sport. He is hoping to change the elitist, privileged attitudes that exist on an structural level, creating a sport that is more welcoming to all genders, races, and class.
There are women achieving extraordinary things within the world of motor-racing, despite the barriers they have to face. The W Series, which was launched in October 2018, is a racing series that is exclusive to women. It is free for its drivers to enter, with a prize for the winner of $500,000. Its website describes its mission statement: ‘provides equal opportunities for women and eliminates the financial barriers that have historically prevented them from progressing to the upper echelons of motorsport’. It also states: ‘the more high-profile female role models it can create, the more W Series believes it will inspire young girls to go karting, bringing more females into the grassroots of the sport. Central to W Series’ mission is the idea that if you can see it, you can be it’. Clearly, the W Series is attempting to break down two of the most difficult obstacles women have to face within motorsport: funding and representation.
However, not everyone believes the W Series to be the answer. Perhaps creating an entirely separate formula for women is only serving to deepen the gender divide, rather than bridge it. Despite the successes of W Series, is it in actuality further compartmentalising women, and fuelling the arguments that women have no place in Formula 1? Take Jamie Chadwick – the two-time champion of the W Series with a strong reputation and evident potential, and yet she is still struggling to find a sponsor who will ‘take a risk’ and help fund her towards F3.
So, even though the W Series is inevitably bringing more attention to women in motor-racing and is enabling that much-needed representation, it seems like the world of Formula 1 is still an elitist ‘boys’ club’. Sir Lewis has had to overcome enormous hurdles to enter the sport from a working class background, to become the most talented, successful driver of all time. And he still has the scars of the racism that he continues to face. He is doing all he can to facilitate women, people of colour, and people from lower socioeconomic classes to enter the sport, but it is high time the sport did more to help him push this important message.