Q1: Women in Motorsport is back on the agenda: Susie Wolff recently launched the “Dare to be Different” initiative to encourage girls into racing, engineering etc; and FormulaGirl & MotorsportSisterhood were launched? Are we actually closer to the first female F1 racing driver?
AM: I was recently at a “Women in Sports” conference in Dublin Castle, it was quite interesting. I think the "This Girl Can" campaign was very effective in getting more women into sport in the UK. There are probably only 3 sports where men and women can compete on equal footing. Mixed Doubles in Tennis, Horse racing and Motorsport.
There is an election very soon here in Ireland and there is talk of introducing a quota of female candidates. For me, there is nothing worse than a token gesture. Having a female driver get so close, like Susie Wolff is encouraging but you have to have the ability. Like Michelle Mouton. Michelle now works for the FIA and the FIA has a “Women in Motorsport” Commission.
They created an opportunity for female drivers and navigators to compete in a cross country rally recently, in the UAE I think, but you get the feeling that the Motorsport Governing body tends to tiptoe around the issue (of women in Motorsport) and are quite happy to let the situation continue. Something else about this topic is that the first thing one sees in F1 is the Grid Girls, indicative of male-centred marketing so that will need to change if you to get serious about this.
BS: The Female Dollar is more than 50% because a lot of household buying decisions are made by women. By engaging women, motorsport sponsors can really capitalise on the majority of the market share.
PA: The reason we have a lot of women is not for biological reasons; it’s just that so few little girls are initiated with racing when they are young, and they can’t find enough sponsors and training in major series.
EO: My opinion is that experience and opportunity drives talent development. You cannot perform if you are not given opportunity at experience AND first-class equipment. Now I am not fit to judge F1 driver talent, but from everything I read, Susie and almost every other woman that I've seen in that arena, have had little more than simulator training, and very little on-track opportunity.
Why? I still believe it comes down to the hesitancy for top-calibre teams to invest in an unknown variable. I've seen it, experienced it, and spoke with far too many female racers in ALL genres complaining about the same thing. They can win, they can advance up the ranks, they can prove ON the track they are capable, and of course, on paper they are a strategic marketing demographic dream.
Yet when it comes time to sign the check (cheque), often a less qualified, less proven, less deserving male will get the opportunity and the investment.
Until you can remove the undeserved stigma out of the boardroom's mind, I don't know that much advancement will be made up the ladder, because they won't have access to the equipment and the funds to reach them. It is a vicious circle. I'd love to get to know the international view on women in motorsports, because my Stateside view seems to be a lot different in terms of the core of the problem.
Others have stated it’s a limited pool issue, that you need more women in the grassroots and development programs from youth. Here, I see that it’s far more common to see young girls in Karts, Dirt Midgets, Junior Dragsters, and all of the grassroots forms of motorsports. It’s not that they aren't introduced to it, nor is it that they lose interest.
I see these young girls coming up, and doing well, and recognize their talent... but then, when they start to move up the ranks, and the costs increase, you see them slowly fade away. They settle for subpar equipment, stretch their insufficient budgets just to try and make an appearance at the big stage in the hopes of being seen and discovered and for that hard to get "experience". Only they don't have the resources the big boys have, and now they are branded as not being able to make the cut. And they die away... another promising career fading into nothing.
The problem from my perspective, is that no matter how far you climb, no matter how many times you prove yourself worthy, how often you win, the corporate boardroom still holds the glass ceiling in place on your career. And if you really look at it closely, it is the same OUTSIDE motorsports in the corporate world for women as well. We still are few and far between in CEO/and upper Executives within large corporations, still underpaid versus our male co-workers, still struggling to balance intolerance and un-accepting attitudes in the workplace.
RET: Historically, there have been a few female drivers in F1. I have seen in my experience several female drivers, but there are issues with men when they are beaten by a woman – seems it is the worst thing that can happen to them. Obviously if a woman is competitive, then you can get more female racers into the sport. Of course it would be interesting to see a woman in a good driving program like Red Bull’s or McLaren’s. I say this because it happened to me; I was the first full-time female journalist in motor-racing in Mexico and my competitive advantage over them was that I have a better level of education, I speak several languages and I do a better job than others. Having a woman in Formula 1, if she's not competitive she won’t succeed. For example, Carmen Jorda is nice and sometimes good for advertisement but she just isn’t competitive enough for F1 yet.