In the grand, all-encompassing era of racing as one, Formula one and its groups were quick to try to highlight the presence of women. Although, when surveyed by ESPN a year ago, the number of women on staff (and especially traveling staff) is surprisingly low across the field, there seems to be plenty of energy for change. Six female drivers are contracted with F1 teams; Jamie Chadwick is Williams’ junior, Abbi Pulling is Alpine Academy associate driver, Jessica Hawkins is development driver and ambassador for Aston Martin, Maya Weug and Laura Camps Torras reside in Ferrari and karter Driving Academy Luna Fluxa is part of the Mercedes firmware.
However, it has been 30 years since a woman entered a major tournament and with comments like F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali says he doesn’t see a woman going there within the next half-decade, it is clear that the barriers are still high. And the highest thing in motorsport is always the price.
The W Series, the girls-only junior championship seen as a ladder in the pyramid of open wheel racing, doesn’t have that. It announced on Monday that it will not complete the 2022 season, citing lack of funding.
The idea is to find the fastest drivers, not the richest, and take the funding pressure off of them. Racers raking in money to compete suddenly find themselves in a fully paid seat – yes, in the regional F3 series, but the cost to compete in that type of machine runs into the hundreds of thousands, a number too big for many female drivers.
Welcomed in the bill to support F1 with a fair amount of noise in 2021, the W Series has brought moments of progress to an almost unchanged grand prix platform. Women show up in abundance every weekend, a multiracial racer dominates the series and the first openly LGBTQ+ racer to stand on the podium during an F1 weekend.
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This year, America and Mexico City’s biggest races are still going, and despite the 11-hour effort, the W Series has made the same announcement as has been seen from so many female drivers throughout the years: season its ending soon. Jamie Chadwick won the title for the third time, seven races have held enough to hand out a trophy, and the drivers and the championship now have to wait and see what happens next.
A sponsor did not deliver. It’s an everyday story in motorsport, and one in particular that the women of the W Series will be familiar with. Pulling entered the series after her sponsor for UK F4 failed to pay, Alice Powell and Emma Kimilainen went completely out of competition for years due to lack of funds, Sarah Moore and Abbie Eaton struggled to find the money. for a full racing season in the UK ahead of the W Series. It will be a challenge to choose a driver in this series whose financial difficulties won’t be so familiar.
So it’s no surprise that W Series CEO Catherine Bond-Muir has announced the news to them.
“I had a Zoom call this afternoon with the drivers and it was extremely similar to the conversation I had with them about the 2020 cancellations because of COVID,” she said. “They were racers in blood, all they wanted to do was race, and they were extremely upset. And at the same time when they were upset, they understood.
“The feeling that came out of it was, ‘Yeah, this is trash, but Catherine, this is what we’ve been dealing with for 20 years. We made money promises, we had contractual commitments. about money and it didn’t work out. We’ve had a lot of people say they would support us and it didn’t happen.’ So it’s like a feeling, ‘Welcome to the world of we.’
Bond-Muir insists that the series run in 2023 and drivers will still be fully funded for it, but the reality is that the W Series faces uncertainty – despite good intentions and commitment. uncompromising – about whether it can pay bonuses or even hold an award ceremony for this year’s top finishers. Employees are not being let go and relationships with suppliers remain the same, but the truth is that the W Series’ brief career in the limelight looks painfully similar to many drivers who need it.
Bond-Muir admits: “The majority of W Series riders find it extremely difficult to get any form of sponsorship. “We know it’s exactly the same for men. For men, the sport is extremely difficult, but I think for women it’s even more difficult.”
All in all, motorsport has taken a nature documentary filmmakers’ approach to failed careers. Yes, it’s sad that the baby elephant would die without the water the team could give it, but intervening would be unethical. That seems once again to be the approach of the F1 paddock that was happy to post the W Series on its social media. As anyone in the content creation industry can attest, “exposure” never costs a dime.
There is an oddly nagging notion that if a female racer looks as if she’s talented enough to get to the top of motorsport, she’ll find herself inundated with offers from motorsports. team and sponsor. The point is that anyone who is not, perhaps, is simply not good. It’s a strange theory in a sport where so many talented young drivers with great potential end up trapped in the gravel trap of unpaid bills.
Simona de Silvestro missed the F1 Sauber drive because she couldn’t get the sponsorship. Tatiana Calderon’s IndyCar drive just evaporated due to an insolvent backer. As W Series driver Powell once said, dripping with deduction, her long career was disrupted by a lack of one thing and “I’m not out of talent.”
The W Series, in its three running seasons, has failed to get a woman to F1, but to be honest, that would be a somewhat unrealistic task for any championship at its level. The space the W Series fills up is where a lot of female drivers give up, early in their single-seater careers, and it’s a long way from there to the top. More disappointing is that no driver seems to be able to graduate from the series to make the move to Formula 3 but not entirely surprising, introduce financial barriers.
Bond-Muir is determined that the W Series will light up again, even if the season ends under a red flag.
“It’s not that I need more reasons to fight for the W Series, because that’s who I am and I’ve been fighting like hell for it for four years,” she said. “And I’ll keep doing so until I can’t.”
Even so, for many years now, good intentions and words of encouragement are what women in motorsport have found themselves to be dedicated to rather than money. The W Series may not yet be the perfect – or perhaps never – solution to addressing gender inequality in motorsport, but it wouldn’t be fair to assume it didn’t do anything or it didn’t kick off. other initiatives such as that of the FIA and Ferrari- the talent search or Formula 3 pilot program for female drivers, to find out what support they need to get there and succeed. labour.
In a world where the answer to why there aren’t any women in the sport is often simply not anyone interested or able to compete, the W Series responds. Look, this is a woman; you simply haven’t picked them yet, we did.
It would be extremely unfortunate if those who said “any woman good enough will be sponsored” watched the 18 seats passively disappear, as if they had no hands on the ropes that could support them. The W Series financial affairs are of the type of adjustment that are considered “small overspending” by Formula One cost limits.
There is no “natural path” in motorsport, it’s about technique and strategy. If the choice is made, in the wider community, to not save the W Series, it will be a decision like many have made over race weekends: a setup.
