Liuzzi: F1 would be tough for girls

[Jugirl]

3 things guys

1 - I have never driven Neils Caterham
2 - I have never seen Neils squirrels or nuts
3 - There is nothing to keep an eye on hehe

I am a one man woman...Fernando eyebrows and all

Jugirl

Ps sorry if i have started something Neil

[Ian]

      

[Alianora La Canta]

Let's start in karting. I would guess female drivers number something like 1 in every 50.

This is a good place to start and most people engaging in this kind of discussion forgets that.

At age 16, the proportion of female drivers to male is also indeed 1:50.

I would, however, like to draw your attention to another statistic. At age 14, the equivalent ratio is... ...2:3.

Basically there is a huge bottleneck in the transition from medium-level karting to world-level karting/junior single-seaters. Several causes have been identified, all reasonably solvable. In no particular order, the causes are:

- Difficulty getting sponsors to take female drivers seriously. When women do get sponsors, the deciding factor is frequently looks even when the woman has as much talent as the men aspiring to the same series. Progressing on looks is not a guarantee of success at the upper levels of motorsport. Getting sponsors to fund people purely on talent would help, though given how marketing works, this is not an especially practical solution. Some sort of central, neutral scholarship system (purely based on merit and disregarding all other factors) would help improve the situation for women, as well as for men who are fast but not yet very marketable (after all Kimi Raikkonen was nobody's idea of marketable until he came into F1 and blew a hole in the order of things!)

- Massive peer and parental pressure to avoid such a high-risk career (the danger is not the problem so much as the low probability of any given driver of either gender making money from it) that requires so many financial and social (sometimes also academic) sacrifices. Women are more likely to be expected to acquiesce to societal norms - and with parental support essential to most budding motorsport careers, if a woman's parents are mainstream, no amount of talent is going to convince them to support her. To solve this, the message needs to go out that motorsport is a valuable competitive sport for everyone, that success is possible to the dedicated and talented regardless of gender and also to make motorsport a better proposition to spectators (young women are more likely to be supportive of fellow women who race if they can enjoy themselves in the process of cheering them on - note this is as much a grassroots issue as an upper-echelon one. If an aspiring racer can take her school friends and family to a race she's in and the race experience is good enough, that can be as powerful as making watching F1 better).

- Hormonal changes. Women face a temporary hormonal change at around age 15 that temporarily puts them at a disadvantage to men at a critical time. By the time things have stabilised again and it's the men's turn to have a temporary hormonal change (at around age 17), the men are sufficiently secure to have it put down to "young and headstrong" while the women, not having had the same luxury, have largely left the sport. The introduction of junior car series that can be joined at 14 could help some, but awareness of the issue among junior team bosses and convincing them to be willing to take on a slightly older woman if she happens to be faster than the slightly younger man would help more.

- Over-scrutiny. Due to how rare a woman is in racing above a certain age point, the officials (to a small extent) and the teams (to a much larger one) tend to grow more suspicious of female success than male success.  Other minorities face this problem too and indeed every minority finds this to some extent in every walk of life. Getting more women through the bottleneck, alongside a rigorously fair approach from officials.

Most of the solutions are not only within the wit of man, but would make motorsport a better thing for everyone irrespective of gender. Break the bottleneck and women will soon have their equivalent of Lewis Hamilton.

[John S]

I concur with your well argued piece Ali and I hope it may reach a wider audience to help influence change.

IMO it requires the likes of the BRDC in Britain and other organisations worldwide to start making a much more positive effort to encourage young female drivers to stay the course from junior Karts through to other levels of motorsport.

The only encouraging sign I see currently in the sport is the Ginetta Juniors series, a support series on the British Touring car bill for 14 to 17 year olds, they have several young girls easily holding their own and Sarah Moore was the series champion last year.

[lkjohnson1950]

I agree with Alia's well written, as usual, piece. People who look at Danica and Simona and see slow women have no idea how successful they have been at a lower level. Danica won a number of high level midget races against tough competition and Simona won a couple of Atlantic races among others. You don't get to even the reduced level IRL without being successful on the way up. I think the 2 biggest problems are right in Alia's analysis: it requires total commitment from her whole family, and it's tough to get a sponsor to take a woman seriously.

Lonny

[Andy B]

I agree with most that's been said here but in the end any driver male or female has to have the ambition to see it through to the end and to achieve this they must have talent.
Nobody should get a drive because of gender for good publicity.
I will be quite happy to see women in F1 as I'm an admirer of the female form!!

[Jericoke]

I agree with most that's been said here but in the end any driver male or female has to have the ambition to see it through to the end and to achieve this they must have talent.
Nobody should get a drive because of gender for good publicity.
I will be quite happy to see women in F1 as I'm an admirer of the female form!!

An ideal F1 situation would be like this:

Each season there is a 'Driver's Combine'.  (I don't know if they have these in Europes or not, but it's common in American football and hockey... players from different teams get together to demonstrate their relative skills).  The drivers, young and old, male and female, "Pay" or "Professional" are then ranked 1 through 26 (or however many grid slots there are.)  The teams are then allocated drivers, perhaps by draw, or perhaps in a reverse order from the previous season (the last place team gets the best driver).

It would be fair, it would ensure that the best drivers in the world are the ones racing in formula one.  Veterans with past success won't impede the up-and-comers with hunger.

I see a million reasons why this would never happen.

As long as there are non-driving reasons for choosing an F1 driver (how else to explain Heidfeld and Kimi on the sidelines?) there will be drivers who bring more to the sport than their questionable driving skill.

Until there is a first 'successful' woman in F1, there won't be more.  This 'first successful woman' probably won't be the best, but she will be good enough.  Once that happens, there will more women in the sport, and they will be there on merit.

[lkjohnson1950]

Here's an interesting article by De Silvestre on her career so far in R&T:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/racing/motorsports/simona-de-silvestro

Sounds like a typical racer.

Lonny

[John S]

Thanks for posting that link lonny, I really enjoyed reading it. Simona's description of her first Indy 500 shows it is an experience she took seriously and is intent on building on. As you say a typical racer.

 

[cosworth151]

Women racers, even champions, have become common in the top ranks of the NHRA. Ashley Force-Hood, Melanie Troxel and Angie McBride are all doing well, even winning on a regular basis. Angelle Sampey even won the Pro Stock Motorcycle National Championship 3 years in a row.

As for the first female F1 champion, That might take a while. She'll be 11 three weeks from today. (My grand daughter    )

[stealthhaggis]

Cough, can't resist this so.....

Cons:
1. The Mirrors are no use, can't put make up on with all that vibration running through them.
2. The Pit Crew would never get a word in edgeways on the radio.
3. Pit boxes would need to be made bigger so they'd have a bigger space to park in.
4. Special helmets would need to be designed so as not to mess up their hair.
5. Grid men?!

Pro's:
1. A raft of new sponsors would enter the sport (Cadburys, Ben & Jerrys, Michael Buble etc)
2. Slow motion replays of the celebrations, hugging & champaign spraying...

Right, I'll be logging off for a week or so!

[Ian]

     Good one stealth

[Jericoke]

Cough, can't resist this so.....

Cons:

1. The Mirrors are no use, can't put make up on with all that vibration running through them.

Just because YOU have trouble putting on makeup in trying circumstances, doesn't mean we do.

Just make them a little concave, and we're fine.

2. The Pit Crew would never get a word in edgeways on the radio.

Like they know anything about racing anyway.

3. Pit boxes would need to be made bigger so they'd have a bigger space to park in.

F1 drivers don't even know how to parallel park!  They always come in nose first.

4. Special helmets would need to be designed so as not to mess up their hair.

Some of the guys could use that, really

5. Grid men?!

I recall Trulli already being surprised by such an event.

Pro's:
1. A raft of new sponsors would enter the sport (Cadburys, Ben & Jerrys, Michael Buble etc)

Mmmm.  Chocolate.

2. Slow motion replays of the celebrations, hugging & champaign spraying...

Right, I'll be logging off for a week or so!

[Scott]

Oh Stealth...I think Jeri gotcha pretty good.   

[Williamsfan]

It should be based on talent alone but I hope to just end the debate a top female racer gets a seat in F1.  Let's be honest, there has been some dross turn up in F1 so someone like Danica Patrick couldn't really do much worse, could she?! 

As for Jeri v Stealth... 

However, one comment!  Imagine Rob Smedley being race engineer with his comments...  'Come on Danica Baby' etc etc.