Why Are There No Women Drivers in F1?

From http://atlasf1.autosport.com/99/nov17/kalb.html

From http://www.btinternet.com/~rhobbs/ladies.htm

 

We should not forget Desiree Wilson who actually is the only woman to have won an F1 race in England. The race was not part of the World Championship, but part of the old British F1 Championship.

Many consider her to have been the best of all the female drivers in history, and that only timing and money prevented her from going any further.

 

To be in F1 requires more than talent. It also requires connections, luck and a metric truckload of cash -- and that's just to make it into the backmarkers. There's just no female with that combination at this time.

As to why the former ones aren't famous -- they didn't win a championship, or even a race. It's pretty amazing that anyone's bothered to document them at all; if they were male, they wouldn't even be footnotes in the history

 

Giovana Amati tried to make it in GP on a Brabham, but never qualified. Damin Hill inherited the car, and that was his springboard to a drive with Williams.

Maybe that females are not really interested in F1. I don't read anything about girls having ambition of becoming F1 drivers, although some race in lower formulas, GT, Sportscars, IRL, Champcar, etc...

It also looks like team managers, sponsors, try to promote ever younger talents in F1 (Nici Rosberg, Vettel, etc...), but nobody bother to recruit a young female. Let's face it, unless it specifically suits their advertising, sponsors won't take the risk, and it seems that there is a reluctance among team managers (even in the lower categories) to employ girls.

Also, motorsport is a pyramid, with F1 at the top (more or less), there are hundred of thousands of guys racing, and only a few (24?), reach the top. I don't think there are thousands of female racers. I may be wrong.

 

Mostly because most parents do not get their daughters involved in go-cart racing at 5 or 6 years old so they can progress through the ranks to F1 one day. Part of it is pure sexism, part is socialism and part is that most young girls opt for other sports themselves...

 

If Danica Patrick did not get married recently, I would have suggested she had the focus to make an attempt in F1. Her true skill will be apparent this year racing for Team Andretti Green. She now has a car capable of winning every race, so if she does well in 2007, you never know what will be next.

 

She married her trainer or physical therapist - so there should be no distractions.

 

And her husband is credited with creating some of the most boring road courses on the planet:

http://www.midamericamotorplex.com/2006/images/site%20parts/2006_rc_map_0.jpg

http://www.autobahncountryclub.net/track.html

http://millermotorsportspark.com/trackOverview.cfm (great facilites, but, sorry, I don't go to race tracks for that reason)

 

I had the pleasure of meeting this lady at the 100 Years of GP dinner at Autosport International in the UK last January:

Divina Galica was born in Bushey Heath, near Watford, Hertfordshire. She participated in her first Olympic games at Innsbruck 1964, competing in downhill skiing and the slalom. She also participated in the next two winter Olympics, at Grenoble 1968 and Sapporo 1972. Galica, a two-time captain of the British Women’s Olympic Ski Team, also briefly held the downhill skiing speed record at 125 mph.

She accepted an invitation to compete in a celebrity auto race at Oulton Park and surprised everyone. She eventually took up motorsport as a second career, racing in karts, sports cars, trucks, and even Formula One, racing a Nick Whiting run Surtees TS16 in the ShellSport F1 series in 1976. She also reintroduced the number 13 to the Grand Prix world by entering the British Grand Prix that year but in the end failed to qualify. The number had only been used once, by Moises Solana at the Italian GP in 1963, since Giulio Masetti died in a Maserati carrying the No.13 when taking part in the Targa Florio in 1926. She drove a Nick Whiting run Surtees TS16.

In 1977 Nick Whiting acquired a TS19 to replace the ageing TS16 and Davina put in some spirited performances finishing on the podium a number of times.

She entered two rounds of the World Championship in 1978 for the Hesketh team failing to qualify for the Argentine and Brazilian GPs. After that she reverted to her trusted TS19 in the Aurora F1 championship before swapping the Surtees for a McLaren M23.

Her racing career included stints in Formula Renault, Formula Vauxhall Lotus, and Formula 2.

She was made a Member of the British Empire for her sporting exploits and also one-time holder of the F1 car lap record at Donington Park race circuit in the UK.

Galica is now a senior vice president with Skip Barber Racing, managing both its driving school and racing series.


Carol

 

Well ask yourself why Bernie was blathering to the press that Lewis Hamilton wouldn't be running in Brazil, and might not be starting next year.

Some old fogies belong in a museum.

 

I have been racing karts for several years, and I have seen many 6-12 girls racing. Actually in the Seattle Karting Club there are more girls than boys on that class. But by the time they go to the 13-up classes they stop racing. I see a lot of teenage girls at the track but they do not race. They are there because there are boys around.
The reason given by the parents is that they are more interesting on "other things" other than racing.
Racing requires 100% commitment and for what I have seen in my +25 years of racing is that very few girls have that commitment.

 

Because Anna Nicole Smith can't fit in the cockpit of a modern F-1 car!

 

I believe Bernie said a while back that 3 types of drivers that he would like in F1 are: a women, a Jew, and an African. So far 0 for 3. Also there seems to be a rather bad stereotype about women and driving.

 

go search what Jenson Button said quite a bit back about womean drivers. if i can recall, he got into trouble for his comments.

 

I knew that was coming. Remember that guy that got fired at CBS for his comments about women golfers. Something about tangled up in the swing.

 

I just always assumed that, for the most part, women are just not interested.

 

If a woman was extremely (seriously) qualified, and brought multi-millions with her, I'm sure someone would give her a shot.

You'd think Red Bull would be interested in finding one, it would sure bring them lots of ink.

 

just wait. there will be one soon. danica is coming. she said so.

 

Looks like this Brazilian woman will get her shot. Danica is not gonna cut it.

http://www.torcidabiafigueiredo.com.br/

 

IMO, there is no reason a woman could not handle a race car on par with a man. Racing is pyshically demanding to be sure, but not to the point of raising 400# over your head.

As such it comes down to exposure and #'s of people interested.

For example. I'm one of the 10 best golfers in a metro area of about 100K people. On a state level, I've been ranked as high as #30, but overall I'd be lucky to break the top 100 in an avergare year. Including professionals in the state I wouldn't be in the top 200 year in year out. Given that, on a nationwide level, even as a scratch golfer, tounry winner, club champion, etc I'd be lucky to break the top 10K players in the nation....

Roughly taking that to racing, 1 out of every 10K people intrested in racing succeed to a profitable (hobbby) level...regional. 1 out of every 100K people make it to testing/drving schools/stunt drivers/ARCA/BUSCH/WOO. 1 in 200K+ make it to ALMS/IRL/CART/TRANS AM/etc Thus 1 in ?K actually make it to F1. You'd have to have 300K+ women who were talented and intereseted enough to pass the previous ranks to even think about making it into F1.

It's not that they can't do it. There is simply a lack of numbers, exposure and the law of averages.

Janet Guthrie/Sarah Fisher could probably run circles around me on a bike...Danica could out run me on foot while I'm on a bike.... Yet the shear numbers of women do not flood the racing scene as to compete with the overwhelming # of equally qualified men who do the same.

Women are cabable, there just arent enough which are interested.

 

It's because women s*ck....not that that's a bad thing.

Seriously though, there aren't any women racing anything all that well. It might be just interest and numbers...if men and women are about equal at racing and men out number women 100 or 1000 to 1, then the numbers say there won't be many women at the top of the game. I heard the Navy did testing and found women make better fighter pilots than men as far as the G's went....but that is just one small part of it.

 

IRL is hardly a training ground for F1. Plus, as has been pointed out many times, she has not won since her karting days.