Women in Formula One

[mustang245]

Because she's American and Nascar is the dominant motor sport in America.

Because she's reasonably intelligent. She wouldn't stand a chance against the worlds finest kind. She has a chance in the land of road rage where domestic road-goers watch Nascar and think they have something in common with their fav driver just cuz they arrive at work safely everyday. I say, after driving a few years in Germany myself, no Americans should drive in F1. Women? Please! I scoff at the premise!

 

[Nicksfix]

Women? Please! I scoff at the premise!

I think maybe you should look at this poll

If they can perform,let them in.

 

[SaberFire]

Sarcasm, I believe was the conversational mechanism being used there.

 

[Peter]

Danica could have made it into the record books. She could have been a legend ,but she chose to be like every other american race car driver.

 

[L_Hamilton]

Danica could have made it into the record books. She could have been a legend ,but she chose to be like every other american race car driver.

No. No. And..

but she chose to be like every other american race car driver.

...what are you trying to say?

 

[Peter]

She can go after F1 but she chose a motorsport that every american race driver will want to be in, which is a much lower class in racing. Why? NASCAR is dominant in the US, but that's not a good reason.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

She can go after F1

Not really

but she chose a motorsport that every american race driver will want to be in, which is a much lower class in racing. Why? NASCAR is dominant in the US, but that's not a good reason.

Opinion

 

[Roo]

Just bear in mind that you don't need to pay attention to what PJ-FFL posts - it's not like he does.

In order to make this post worthwhile and on topic, this is a condensed record of women in F1: because I'm bored and procrastinating:

• Maria Teresa de Filippis, 1958/9, 5 entries, 3 starts, best result 10th
• Lella Lombardi, 1974-6, 17 entries, 12 starts, best result 6th (0.5 points)
• Divina Galica, 1976 & 1978, 3 entries, 0 starts
• Desiré Wilson, 1980, 1 entry, 0 starts
• Giovanna Amati, 1992, 3 entries, 0 starts

So just by pulling away from the grid Danica - or any other women - would become the 3rd most successful female F1 driver.

 

[danny12]

She does not have the talent to compete with F1 elite drivers... but maybe she and Scott Speed will dare to embarras themselves in F1 next year....

 

[Terronium-12]

Yea but Sutil runs like a girl .

Starting @ 0:29

I don't mean to bring up a video from a gajillion pages ago, but didn't anyone notice the incredible use of phlegm at the end of the video?

I've never seen much of Danica racing but from what I hear, and from everyone I know who tells me - she kind of sucks. Regardless of that being true or not, if she has what it takes I'd say she should go for it. 👍

 

[Ardius]

Well, Danica qualifies for a superlicense currently if that means anything, for all we know she could be brilliant in F1, but there is little suggest she would be for certain.
You can be amazing in other series (see: Jan Magnussen) but F1 is another thing entirely. The opposite is true too, Buemi was nothing special in other series but he quickly adapted to F1 and impressed on debut. Although the rest of his season hasn't been anything special, it was interesting to see him going toe-to-toe with Massa & Co and scoring on debut.

Danica's not rubbish, she is good, but not spectacularly so, and not so much it warrants a F1 race seat, maybe a test or two though.

 

[Alex.]

Almighty bump but didn't want to start a new thread.

Sir Stirling Moss says women lack the mental aptitude to compete in Formula 1

I'd like to write paragraphs about this, but all I can say for now is he's not wrong. But he isn't right either. I think there is a very small percentage of women who have the 'balls' to race hard wheel to wheel on the limit. But don't forget the majority of men don't have the balls do that either. Competitive sport like that is quite a testosterone fuelled spectacle.

 

[niky]

I'd say he's got it completely the other way around.

Women have the mental aptitude. Physical pain? Fear of death? That's not a problem for women. Testosterone? There are a lot of women with more testosterone than most men.

What it comes down to is physical strength and endurance. F1 is a very physical sport and your endurance is related to your physical condition. Not a lot of men can do what F1 drivers can do, and it'll be very hard to find women who can do that, too. On top of that, there are very few feeder series and opportunities to develop women drivers.

This is on top of the spatial skills gap that exists because of the fundamental physical differences in the brains of men and women. But that's not exactly the same thing Moss said...

 

[Alex.]

But the physicality in F1 is surely related to muscular endurance rather than muscular strength, I don't imagine that women are less capable of building up endurance. Yes, there is a level of strength required for F1 but I don't think that level is unachievable for women.

 

[niky]

It's certainly possible. Some research indicates women might have better or similar long-distance endurance than men... opening up the possibility of women driving at LeMans... ...but for a race event lasting just two hours, men have the physical edge.

I don't think this question will ever be satisfactorily answered, not until we get enough women in motorsports to build up a pool of talented drivers from which to select F1 drivers.

 

[Beerz]

I thought this issue was settled the minute women got multiple orgasms... let us have all the racing drivers.

 

[Seismica]

This is on top of the spatial skills gap that exists because of the fundamental physical differences in the brains of men and women. But that's not exactly the same thing Moss said...

I believe that whilst there is a difference in the spacial skills between men and women, there is also incredible disparity for spacial skills amongst men. Look at current F1 drivers, would we class someone like Kimi or Jenson having the same spacial skills as someone like Grosjean or Maldonado? I doubt it. I'm sure there are many women out there who have spacial skills to at least match some current F1 drivers.

-

In terms of the fitness aspects, I believe that women could perform just fine with the right training, same as men.

I think there are differences between the sexes that would favour men more than women for a racing driver role, but the cream of the crop of women could match most men. Now I know F1 is very much a physical sport, but in F1 the car does the majority of the work, so it isn't going to be like pitting a women's football team against a men's football team. The men wouldn't physically dominate just because they are men, the performance gap will likely be smaller or even non-existent over the duration of an F1 race.

 

[niky]

With Kimi, I think it's more to do with his incredible reaction times than anything else (I recall in some races with Ferrari, his countersteering was incredibly fast).

I agree that there are women with the potential to be better than most men drivers, hell, I've met women who could kick my ass eight ways to Tuesday on the race track, but in F1, you've got the best of the best driving for the top teams, and until we've got enough women in the sport, we might not see a pool of female drivers big enough to produce a champion able to challenge that group.

Then again... you never know...

GT Academy Middle East Features the First Female Finalist

 

[LongbowX]

I believe that whilst there is a difference in the spacial skills between men and women, there is also incredible disparity for spacial skills amongst men. Look at current F1 drivers, would we class someone like Kimi or Jenson having the same spacial skills as someone like Grosjean or Maldonado? I doubt it. I'm sure there are many women out there who have spacial skills to at least match some current F1 drivers.


In terms of the fitness aspects, I believe that women could perform just fine with the right training, same as men.

I think there are differences between the sexes that would favour men more than women for a racing driver role, but the cream of the crop of women could match most men. Now I know F1 is very much a physical sport, but in F1 the car does the majority of the work, so it isn't going to be like pitting a women's football team against a men's football team. The men wouldn't physically dominate just because they are men, the performance gap will likely be smaller or even non-existent over the duration of an F1 race.

While there may be a baseline "average" for spatial differences between men and women - those also could be manipulated by society, and what we encourage what men and women 'should' want to do. The key thing also to remember is that the brain is plastic. If you use your spatial abilities heavily, they will improve over your baseline. So, a woman who heavily uses her spatial ability will have it improve somewhat over time, and whose brain will wire itself accordingly (this is talking primarily when they are young especially). I don't believe the differences are so massively large that it would make much of a difference anyway - and with this improvement, I believe they could at least match (or exceed) some of drivers now as you eluded to.

Physically, I also agree they could perform fine. I believe at the moment that the issues with this aren't so much physical or brain limitation but societal, and the culture of racing. Racing (and the automotive industry as a whole), is male dominated, and I don't know how welcome it is for women. I think that is discouraging for many. And it also might not be that accommodating for parents to put their girl into that environment either (when they're younger).

I do think that we will see more, though. Or at least I certainly hope so.

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

The problem is like LongbowX said more a thing of what men and women "should" do.

Because if a woman want to have a fair chance of getting on a f1 without beeing only for the sponsor they will have to follow the path of the other drivers. I know there's girl in junior kart racing, but as soon as you get older and older there's less and less women, then when you come to GP2, Formula 3.5 or stuff like that, there's not a woman left as far as I know. Once that we will have a promising woman on one of the championship that gives good access to formula 1 then things might change a bit.

But as long as team will take women because they are women and not because of skill I doubt we'll see a good woman driver on the grid.

 

[niky]

I'd argue teams take whoever performs. Granted, signing someone like Danica Patrick might be partially for PR purposes, but if the girl didn't perform at all, she'd be out on her ass lickety-split. She may not be the best driver out in the field, but to be able to finish in top ten positions and gather the odd podium throughout her career means that she's not the worst (not by faaaaar) either.

It's not like many of the female racing drivers are sex symbols and media personalities exclusively. We've had precious few here, and despite the odd FHM and magazine appearances, they're as deadly serious about racing as any career male driver. One of them even drives at the 25 hours of Thunderhill every year.

 

[Danny]

UK GTP'ers, there's a program called 'Driven: The Fastest Woman in the World' on BBC iPlayer right now about Susie Wolff and her determination to get into Formula One.

Well worth a watch. 👍

 

[hawkeye122]

One of them even drives at the 25 hours of Thunderhill every year.

True story. She's reasonably quick as well

 

[chromatic9]

UK GTP'ers, there's a program called 'Driven: The Fastest Woman in the World' on BBC iPlayer right now about Susie Wolff and her determination to get into Formula One.

Well worth a watch. 👍

Just watched it on the iplayer after finding while looking for BBC's F1 forum, very good and well worth watching.

Even if you're not so interested in Susie Wolff, there's clips of her karting with Lewis Hamilton when they were young and other stuff too.

Found the whole show on YT. Probably get taken down soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id97B70M4Yg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3wftM-UuqM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGx3O1q6aUw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGfu08LZVsU

iplayer link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rk3bv/Driven_The_Fastest_Woman_in_the_World/

 

[alonsof1fan91]

She may not be the best driver out in the field, but to be able to finish in top ten positions and gather the odd podium throughout her career means that she's not the worst (not by faaaaar) either.

Thats not good enough for F1. Kobayashi, Kovalainen, Petrov, Heidfeld and Glock have done more than that and are out of F1. Well, for Danica this would be enough because of her PR advantages.

 

[niky]

Thats not good enough for F1. Kobayashi, Kovalainen, Petrov, Heidfeld and Glock have done more than that and are out of F1. Well, for Danica this would be enough because of her PR advantages.

Of course it isn't. Which is why Danica isn't in F1.

It was in reaction to the assertion that women in motorsports are there because of PR reasons. Obviously, teams want the most PR they can get... it helps with funding... but if a driver can't perform at that level, there's no point in holding onto her.

F1 is one of the most PR intensive of motorsports, where the right driver can bring in an extra twenty to fifty million a year, yet none of the modern teams have seen fit to put a woman on track in a GP... yet.

 

[alonsof1fan91]

IMO motorsports is one of the few sports where men and women can compete at a equal level. A woman could drive a F1 as fast as a men. Problem is, the pool of female drivers is very small, so the chances of getting a female "alien" is much lower. There are some famous racers, like Susie Wolff or Danica, but none who is F1 material. But I have to add that we have or had male drivers in the past, who didn't deserve to be in F1 either like Chandhok, Yamamoto, Karthekeiyan or Max Chilton.

So, yeah, Susie Wolff could buy herself into the 2nd Williams maybe, but she would only get trashed by Maldonado and the reputation of female drivers would sink.

 

[Imari]

F1 is one of the most PR intensive of motorsports, where the right driver can bring in an extra twenty to fifty million a year, yet none of the modern teams have seen fit to put a woman on track in a GP... yet.

Pretty much this. Given a male and female driver that were equal in all other respects, a team would take the female for the PR. That first season would be a PR wet dream.

Why is a reasonable question, but I doubt that physicality comes into it much. There must be tens of thousands of women athletes as fit or fitter than the F1 guys. I suspect it's just that becoming a racing driver isn't exactly a common dream for little girls. It seems that these days if you don't get into it while you're little you'll never make it.

 

[BlacqueJacques]

Why not if they have the skill, desire and of course: the dough-ray-me money $$ baby

Without all three it won't happen eh.

 

[Ardius]

There are some famous racers, like Susie Wolff or Danica, but none who is F1 material. But I have to add that we have or had male drivers in the past, who didn't deserve to be in F1 either like Chandhok, Yamamoto, Karthekeiyan or Max Chilton.

Yeah but Chandhok, Yamamoto, Karthikeyan and Chilton have all won races in junior formulae?
All of them except Yamamoto have won races in GP2 even.

So even though they weren't brilliant F1 drivers, they have at least a reasonable background to justify a seat.
Even fricking useless drivers like Yuji Ide and Ricardo Rosset have won races.

Whereas Wolff has never won a race. Ever. To call her the "Fastest Woman in the World" is not only a bad joke but also kind of insulting to genuinely great drivers like Simona di Silvestro, Ana Beatriz and yes, even Danica Patrica.

The only thing I hate more than people who are prejudiced against certain sexes or ethnicities or whatever is people who parade and glorify people based on sex or ethnicity. Both are as bad as each other but only one is recognised as being bad.
People wanting to see Wolff in F1 will only be very sorely disappointed and only stoke the fire to those that claim women can't make it. I can certainly see the point about leading by example..but really, it should be the best person who is hired for the job, not the best PR opportunity. I don't really see people that are not very good at their job as a great example or very inspirational.

And while some drivers are picked for money...like I've just said, nearly all of the drivers that bring money have won races or even championships these days. All of the drivers in F1 today are talented and had to prove themselves.