Have Your Say: Can Women be Competitive in Modern Formula One Racing?

[oorjit07]

Not sure, on the one hand women are just as capable as men in a lot of areas so why wouldnt they be. However on the other hand when talking about elite physical performance, as in top of the top, as in creme da la creme it will almost always be dominated by men not because of sexism but genetics. If the Olympics didnt have separation for men and women events, if a women was to qualify to say the 100m they would soon find themselves out because the men are too fast. An elite female sprinter will beat 99% of the world, an elite male however will beat everybody.

The reason why im not sure is because i dont know how physically demanding racing is at the top level of f1(hell even at any level tbh, never raced before ). If it isnt as hard as pressumed then women have every chance to compete but if it is then theres already a hurdle that women would find a harder time to jump than men.

Considering that women have flown more physically demanding fighter planes for years, I don't think that makes a difference.

OK this is an age old question.

Let me tell you something. I watch a hell of a lot of short oval racing in the UK. I prefer the full contact racing and the starter formula for that is called Ministocks.

They are fairly highly tuned Mini based space-frame cars with full body protection and inner bracing to allow full contact.

Age limit is 14 to 16.

And a few years ago the majority of drivers winning were girls. This is full contact racing like F1 stock cars, hard, very punishing. And most of the champions were lasses.

Talk to them and sex is not even mentioned, they are just racing their mates as peers. So much was there no difference, no pink cars, no special stuff in the press they were literally just racing drivers.

That is a quantum leap over every single sport other than equestrianism in terms of female participation and equality. Actually perhaps drag racing aswell.

I watched a thing about road racing in Ireland recently and there was a pretty little girl racing there, she had amazing bikes, great setups but was useless. That is what gives women racing a bad name. And the tv people should be ashamed, trying to use a young lass to get people interested, it is simple baiting.

There was none of this in Ministocks. I tried to get some press interested but the people running the class were not keen as the kids were simply racing each other, to them their sex was not an issue. And I quickly realised they had jumped about two stages ahead of every other motorsport known to man without even realising it.

Do you see how much further in advance that is compared to every single person mentioned here? Jorda, what a disgrace, Wolff not bad but only there coz of Toto, Danica there as she is hot and was pushed by a massive marketing campaign for years. Wilson, Galica, all average but you only remember them because they were women. Paula Cook, woeful. Lyn St James, fair play for having a go, but c'mon. You don't rememeber the other guys she qualified at the back near do you? Because they are as forgettable as they all should be

There are very few, if any proper female motorsport competitors that deserve credit for their results. Michele is the one that stands out. But be honest, she was there initially as a clever move by Audi, I am sure they had no idea she would be as good as she was. But it worked out superbly for them, and she proved herself in every way.

So, in a basic formula, run but Dads, they have managed to sweep sexism away. Anyone who has seen Judy Lyons in Historic F1 will be fully aware how much of a quantum leap that is as that women should never, ever be allowed on any racetrack

I think in about 10 years time every motorsport will end up like this. It won't matter what sex you are, all that will matter is how talented you are. Once that happens, people will realize that women can perform just as well as men in motorsport.

 

[mantasisg]

How many females are visiting RaceDepartment ? I think it would sum it up.

 

[CC]

How many females are visiting RaceDepartment ? I think it would sum it up.

Yeah @Bram , How many woman visiting RD ?

 

[Blkout]

Not being sexist but the question was can women be COMPETITIVE in F1? The answer to that is no. Can a woman drive an F1 car? Sure.

 

[mikhail000]

The whole fitness thing is blown out of proportion many drivers smoked, drank and where overweight yet managed to compete from the 50-90's, same goes for fighter pilots throughout the two wars, the reason many suffered in the past was more to due to heat exhaustion.
.

 

[mantasisg]

It is all about reflexes, loving challenges, a little bit of danger, and motivation to be the best, the number one.

Speaking of fitness, I don't think you need a lot muscles, but certainly strong and fast muscles. And speaking of weight, females definitely has an advantage, as they weights less, usually. We all know that every bit of weight makes cars slower, maybe except when it is wet track.

 

[Rob Every]

There is absolutely no reason why a woman can not be competitive physically in an f1 car.

For a strat theya re not as physically demanding to drive as they used to be. And the offer advantages in some ways in tersm of height, weight etc.

So far all you have seen for decades is either spouses of important people having a go or tarts with a good PR person behind them

We have never had a proper, fit, dedicated, driven female single-seater driver trying to get this far.

Legge, Wolff, Jorda are all average perhaps even below average drivers who have used their sex to get breaks.

They are not singularly special drivers who have used their talent to get to the top.

that is the ONLY difference.

Similarly to black, Asian and other races of men, they are not interested enough to put the time in or their culture does not provide an interest.

It is exactly the same.

One day, there will be a female who puts the training, has the dedication, and the skills. And she will break the mould I hope. Simple as that.

 

[MarkR]

How many females are visiting RaceDepartment ? I think it would sum it up.

I can't speak for RaceDepartment but I think these stats from one of my recent Youtube videos is a picture that speaks a thousand words.

Of course there could be some misreporting in the stats with people using others accounts to view etc but it seems likely to be close to the truth to me.

 

[mikhail000]

It is all about reflexes, loving challenges, a little bit of danger, and motivation to be the best, the number one.

Speaking of fitness, I don't think you need a lot muscles, but certainly strong and fast muscles. And speaking of weight, females definitely has an advantage, as they weights less, usually. We all know that every bit of weight makes cars slower, maybe except when it is wet track.

You forgot height which stops alot of drivers remember Webber difficulties,
modern day drivers build are more like dainty jockeys.

 

[BoogerMac]

I believe Lance Stroll has shown us it is possible...with the correct amount of money.

 

[delpinsky]

Mmm let's see. A name that comes to my mind, because she is my fellow-citizen, is: Michela Cerruti.

Superstars International Series
fighting against racers like Gianni Morbidelli, Thomas Biagi andJohnny Herbert among the others.
On 10 April 2011 in Monza, after a long training period, Michela obtained an extraordinary result in the season opener of the series: the
second place in race one and an unexpected and stunning victory in race two, entering in this way in the history of the Superstars Series
as the first and only female racer ever to win the Series.

Italian Gran Turismo Championship.
Blancpain Endurance Series
In 2013 Michela ended the 1000km in Nürburgring gaining the second place in the Pro – Am class, together with her teammate Stefano Comandini, although both of them belonging to the bronze category.

FIA European F3 Championship
AutoGP Championship
Formula E Championship
VLN Endurance Championship (with the BMW Z4 GT3)

So yeah, I think women can compete at top levels.
But only few can achieve great moments. It's a tough job because it needs a lot of physical training. Let's hope to see more women in the Motorsport world, and not only as grid girls

 

[Will Mazeo]

Simple math: the minority of men that try actually becomes professional. So you have less women begning it will be difficult to find one that will get there too. The difficulty is the same, in the end what should matter is lap times.
But that's not what happens, many times you have pay drivers getting seats because they have money, and in some others you see women getting it just because they are women, in both cases there is always a faster driver that should be in the car.

 

[PaulH]

Oh man! This subject is ripe for jokes
But I won't lower myself......

Here's a photo of me instead as a Grid Boy

 

[FeltHat]

what a good, clean boy

 

[Diego Balzarini]

I'm impressed about the number of people agreeing on the matter.
There's no difference between a man and a woman that could lead one being better than the other at racing because of the anatomy.... If we had 20 women in f1 we could have a champion.... If we had the same amount of girls driving karts from the age of 4 as the boys we would have champions....

Super v8 in Oz have a swiss woman after a long time racing in the championship.

But the question is " will big teams hire a woman as a driver?" There's still a lot of testosterone going on in racing so it'll be tough for women.
It's the same in my job but it's slowly changing, women "should" cook at home but chefs are mainly men.....
Some people say that women could not be physically prepared for f1..... If they can carry a baby for 9 months they can race for a couple Of hours

 

[Ghoults]

I can't think of biological or gender reasons why it couldn't happen. Even if f1 was a lot harder physically than it is now it still would not be close to any human limits. You'd need the drivers to be in better shape but if you look at the years 2014-2016 it was obvious the limits were really low. All that mattered was being low weight. Not being in good shape. And even in this year drivers are doing hot long races without drinks bottles and not really pushing themselves when doing that.

Mentally I think gender is non-issue as well. Women can be just as competitive as men, just as technical, just as naturally good drivers, just as good dealing with stress etc...

There are some things that could make a difference. One is the women themselves. It does look like women in general are less interested about motorsports than men. Even if you take into consideration that women need to want it more to get their parents to buy them a kart (I think it is mostly the mothers who are against it) there just seems to be less interest. So I don't think the low numbers are just parents pushing boys and girls into different sports. I think some of that could be the girls simply wanting to do something else instead. Like ride horses or whatever.

Other thing that hurts women drivers is this new generation of beautiful women who get their motorsports careers because of their looks. These women get to drive top of their class cars in top teams and while they do poorly they still move up the ladder. Becoming f1 test drivers or whatever. This hurts the upcoming girls who look at these carmen jordas and suzi wolfs and what they see is not skill and ability but beauty and marrying money. What these girls need to see are the simona silvestros and michele moutons. Women who earned their spot on the grid on merit, women who really prove it it can be done.

This hurts the upcoming women drivers in many ways. One is the constant need of proving herself that is required. Because there are many women who get into motorsports just because they look good and are marketable it leads to situation where teams are looking at these drivers and they need to ask whether they are getting a super model or a racing driver. This makes it frustrating for the girls and women as well because this kind of doubt is annoying as hell. I've read some interviews and this need to prove your skill is one that gets mentioned a lot.

As for real life examples look at drag racing. Lots of succesfull women there.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Easily. Driving cars is demanding physically, but not physically the most demanding of sports. Women can obtain required muscle strength and stamina. Rest is about courage and dedication, but I believe it's also hostile and macho world, where women will get lots of extra crap, especially in the beginning.

Problem is also motivation. Women have less interest in general in motorsports, and less interest in dedicating obsessively their life into one single thing, like men. It is like playing electric rock guitar, basically nothing prevents women from doing that (not physically demanding) but they mostly don't pursue that.. Attitudes and expectations of society, men, women themselves. Most go some easier route. But certainly it would be possible, some women have lots of courage and toughness to them.

 

[MustartMatters]

Well, if they're good enough, sure!
I think it's ridiculous that they're used as marketing gimmicks, probably does more harm for women's reputation, look at Jorda.
They should only be there on merit.

 

[Akra]

I agree with those who talked about a lot of the current female drivers being there due to looks. All this does is devalue woman drivers and tell them that their appearance will have more effect than their skill level. If we keep promoting women drivers based on marketing and how good they look in a photo, then we'll probably never see females at the top of any motorsport.

Promoting female drivers for the sake of being female, hurts females in the long run. It's what NASCAR did with Bill Lester. "Look, we've got an African American driver! Aren't we inclusive?" They promptly stopped funding him and dropped him quickly afterwards when that marketing stunt was over. And as Bill himself said, why isn't he just a driver? Why is he an African American driver?

We'll reach proper equality when female drivers are just drivers, not female drivers. But as long as our sport is hostile to women and tell them their place is holding a flag, or wearing lycra with a brand name painted over it, I'm not sure we'll ever achieve that. We don't treat women as equals in this sport by a long shot, so that needs solved first IMO.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Yep sadly female athletes are still valued too much for their looks. Anna Kournikova, highest paid female tennis player, never won a 1-1 WTA tennis tournament.

Other side of the coin: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-vile-online-trolls-calling-fat-ugly-win.html

Wins Wimbledon, gets bashed for looks. The sad state of world we live in.

In motorsports it certainly hurts credibility, when only beautiful women get the spotlight. But same happens in music industry and lots of sports. When men are judged by only results.