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

[Gringo]

The women are generally not interested in motor sport. A quick look through the reply's in this thread and I haven't noticed any comment from the ladies. A few have made a mark on the sport in various series, and I figure that the talent of those few was supreme.

As many have mentioned any competitive driver could get a seat in F1.

 

[Eric Rowland]

Not F1....
Lyn St James, Anny Charlotte-Verney, Desire Wilson and Ellen Lohr are the only ones that were really competitive with the men relatively speaking...imho. They were very competitive.

 

[Akra]

In series other than F1? Christina Nielsen is an IMSA GTD Champion I think and Katherine Legge has become a very good GT driver as well. Certainly both of them can be considered competitive with men.

 

[VirtuaIceMan]

Sophia Flörsch was kicking all manner of ass in Ginetta Juniors UK. Sadly her performance in German F4 hasn't quite been up there yet. Cross fingers though. That said, in a series that had Mick Schumacher in it last year, you'd have to be both good and have some luck, in order to get noticed. She is driving a car in pink Force India sponsor colours this year!

 

[pjlx911]

The left-leaning will always say that men and women are equal, everyone's a blank slate, yada yada yada...

The fact is that no one is equal, no one is a blank slate, and we're automatically given certain advantages/disadvantages when we come into this world. The facts are that there is a legit reason why women race drivers haven't really amounted to much in the racing environment. Biology.

Men have natural gifts that play incredibly well in the realm of racing. Mainly strength, durability, and reaction. As much as certain people try to deviate from this real, and present, point, the more it keeps being proven true that eons of development in the male side of the house (hunter-gatherers and having to develop methods to wear down their prey (and also the alertness to not get keeled off in the process)) plays well with racing automobiles at very fast speeds.

This rings incredibly true when we're talking about F1 cars that produce in upwards of 8-9g's lateral and vertical. Cars that are continuously being toned down so as to avoid the drivers blacking out while behind the wheel, but they are still incredibly, and brutally, fast. It's really the same reason why there are more male fighter pilots then women, and certainly why the "aces" of both had always been the men that had better psychical/mental attributes over other fellow men.

The driver needs to be incredibly durable and are actually deceptively strong. You try racing, hard as hell, non-stop, for 10 laps in a go-kart, and tell me how exhausting that could get. Now imagine having to muscle around a car that goes much faster and produces greater pushing forces against the driver struggling to put in the proper steering/throttle inputs. In F1, most men have to try to tone down the velocity to pull that off, "Ace" drivers learn to deal with it. Women have to really slow down to combat this. Now try doing this while having to stay alert the whole race, men, through eons of development, had built this alertness up. Then this leads to the male's natural advantages in reaction (reason why male fighting sports will always be more entertaining to watch, and why people will marvel at a Mohammed Ali, Roy Jones Jr., Sugar Ray Leonard, or Floyd Mayweather over any female fighter), and that adds another disadvantage that women would find it completely difficult to overcome.

It's the reason why even Danica had not achieved much in her career, and why women would do better in the lower, less powerful car, leagues. The speeds aren't as high, hence the strength, durability, and reaction needed to drive the cars around the track are less, and why they tend to do pretty well there (but would still get dominated if a talented male driver comes waltzing in). It's really just biology, and unless everyone becomes a cyborg/android, the likelihood of this changing is next to nil no matter how much certain people try to push more women into racing.

 

[Grand Tourist]

Edit : the question is "can" they be competitive? I think so, under perfect circomstances and sufficient training, same as for any male race pilot. But "will" they be? No probably not ever. Too much male dominance on too many domains, too less females evolving through all race classes of motorsports. In order to see women numerously racing all sorts of classes, an entire female race department would have to be created. Just like any other sport, not sure about horse riding though.

 

[Akra]

There are less female fighter pilots because women weren't even allowed to be in combat until recently. These cars are not beyond women to drive, and that applies to all classes and categories. They are tough but so is a marathon and women do fine in that. There are less successful women because there are less in the sport.

The excuses that cars are too hard to drive and that's why there's no women fall apart when you apply then to other series. Nascar stock cars or GT cars can be driven by overweight unfit fat men, yet there's not many successful women in those either because it's a pure numbers game - less women in the sport means less successful women.

The sport is actively hostile to women in a lot of cases. This sort of thing cannot be excused by declaring everyone who disagrees with you as left leaning. Not being sexist isn't left leaning. Its being a good human being.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

In fact, as someone pointed out earlier, the U.S. Air Force has long known that that women are actually superior to men in many key areas, such as concentration, reaction time, and weight (for racing).

Men have natural gifts that play incredibly well in the realm of racing. Mainly strength, durability, and reaction.

I think this basically sums up this whole discussion.

That coupled with the women with the best results on avg. raced in the 70's and 80's where the cars had way less driving aids, more power, and was generally more raw and harder to driver.

This is yet another circle-discussion that will end up with wannabe-politics.

 

[el chasco]

Yep, except if is Carmen Jordà. Worst driver impossible.

 

[Blkout]

Interesting, and in the world of fighter plane pilots how many were women and where did they rank amongst all the other men?

Extremely low percentage wise. Most fighter pilots in the US are men.

 

[Blkout]

If the driver is fast enough,
The driver is fast enough.
It is really that simple.

And the abundance of women F1 drivers confirms that the talent pool is there.

 

[kondor999]

In F1, all that matter is results. If there was a woman who could outqualify even one of the current drivers, she'd be on the grid soon enough. It would be a publicity gold mine for the team. They would undoubtedly prefer a female driver over an otherwise-equivalent male, for this reason alone.

Consequently, there is absolutely nothing stopping a woman from doing anything a man can do in F1, except for the fact that few women seem actually interested in driving a race car for a living. The pool to select from is therefore much smaller, and what you get is one Michéle Mouton every 30-40 years.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I don't see why not. I'd pick a Female driver if I had a team simply based on weight. A 155lb man against a 105lb female, no contest. In a sport where milliseconds matter, I think it would be beneficial.

 

[Akra]

Consequently, there is absolutely nothing stopping a woman from doing anything a man can do in F1, except for the fact that few women seem actually interested in driving a race car for a living. The pool to select from is therefore much smaller, and what you get is one Michéle Mouton every 30-40 years.

This is it in a nut shell.

The question should not be if a woman can be competitive. The question is why is there such a shortage of women competing in motorsport. It has very little to do with skill and more to do with interest in the sport. Society, and more relevantly to this thread, our sport, has a lot to do with killing that interest.

 

[Ari Antero]

Taru Rinne , was the first woman to achieve points in Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Career

Karting
Rinne started her racing career in karting, competing against future Formula One drivers Mika Häkkinen, Mika Salo and Jyrki Järvilehto on multiple occasions. She won the Finnish Karting Championship in the 85cc class in 1979, ahead of Häkkinen. In 1980, she finished second behind Salo and ahead of Häkkinen who was fourth. She battled with Häkkinen again in 1981, and this time finished second in the series with Häkkinen becoming the champion. The next year Rinne won the series again and Häkkinen had to settle with second place. In 1983, she also finished first in the championship but was disqualified from the last race due to illegal fuel. Thus the title went to Häkkinen. She was also given a personal one-year ban from racing, which eventually ended her promising career in karting.

Road Racing
Despite her success on four wheels, Rinne decided to switch to motorcycles and debuted in the Road Racing World Championship, now known as MotoGP, in 1988.With her Honda bike she qualified second for the 125cc class GP at Hockenheim in 1989 and managed to lead the race for a while. She eventually finished seventh bettering her earlier eighth place at Assen.This was to remain her best ever result, as she got into a bad accident at Paul Ricard. While recovering from the accident, she got a letter from Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time decided which riders are allowed to compete in the series. The letter said that she is not qualified to compete next season. This ended her career at top-level and Rinne later said that the letter was the biggest disappointment of her life.

The saddest past of this story is that Rinne had already faced such misogyny before. Indeed, Rinne only took up motorcycle racing after she had been drummed out of four-wheel racing. Rinne dominated Finnish kart racing — winning two championships — embarrassing the sport male hierarchy at a time when, well, women were not supposed to beat men at sports long dominated by men. Having secured her third championship, she was summarily stripped of the title and banned from racing for using illegal fuel, an infraction typically considered so trivial that it usually results in just a few points removed. The runner-up who inherited Finland’s karting crown? Mika Häkkinen. Yes, that Mika Häkkinen, the one who ended up winning the Formula One title twice and is now ranked as the 15th greatest Formula One driver of all time by no less an authority than Autosport magazine.

So why hasn’t motorsports become more welcoming when even other traditionally male-dominated sports like boxing and mixed martial arts are now so legitimately female friendly? Well, I suspect it’s because the very top of motorsport is still dominated by the last remnants of an old boy’s club that still sees the primary role for females in motorsport as umbrella holder on pit row. The official who wrote Taru Rinne to tell her she was no longer welcome in Grand Prix motorcycle racing? According to Taru, you now know him as Formula One’s supremo. hmm yes, Bernie Ecclestone.

Sad story

 

[Neilski]

I never liked Bernie anyway and this is just another reason to dislike him...

 

[kondor999]

I'll just leave this here

Pastor won the 2010 GP2 championship against some incredible drivers. Wonder how Susie might have done? Pastor's story actually shows just how hard it is to make it in F1.

 

[RufGTI]

Not a prominent person but my little sister is a much better sim racer than me

 

[Grand Tourist]

Taru Rinne , was the first woman to achieve points in Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Career

Karting
Rinne started her racing career in karting, competing against future Formula One drivers Mika Häkkinen, Mika Salo and Jyrki Järvilehto on multiple occasions. She won the Finnish Karting Championship in the 85cc class in 1979, ahead of Häkkinen. In 1980, she finished second behind Salo and ahead of Häkkinen who was fourth. She battled with Häkkinen again in 1981, and this time finished second in the series with Häkkinen becoming the champion. The next year Rinne won the series again and Häkkinen had to settle with second place. In 1983, she also finished first in the championship but was disqualified from the last race due to illegal fuel. Thus the title went to Häkkinen. She was also given a personal one-year ban from racing, which eventually ended her promising career in karting.

Road Racing
Despite her success on four wheels, Rinne decided to switch to motorcycles and debuted in the Road Racing World Championship, now known as MotoGP, in 1988.With her Honda bike she qualified second for the 125cc class GP at Hockenheim in 1989 and managed to lead the race for a while. She eventually finished seventh bettering her earlier eighth place at Assen.This was to remain her best ever result, as she got into a bad accident at Paul Ricard. While recovering from the accident, she got a letter from Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time decided which riders are allowed to compete in the series. The letter said that she is not qualified to compete next season. This ended her career at top-level and Rinne later said that the letter was the biggest disappointment of her life.

The saddest past of this story is that Rinne had already faced such misogyny before. Indeed, Rinne only took up motorcycle racing after she had been drummed out of four-wheel racing. Rinne dominated Finnish kart racing — winning two championships — embarrassing the sport male hierarchy at a time when, well, women were not supposed to beat men at sports long dominated by men. Having secured her third championship, she was summarily stripped of the title and banned from racing for using illegal fuel, an infraction typically considered so trivial that it usually results in just a few points removed. The runner-up who inherited Finland’s karting crown? Mika Häkkinen. Yes, that Mika Häkkinen, the one who ended up winning the Formula One title twice and is now ranked as the 15th greatest Formula One driver of all time by no less an authority than Autosport magazine.

So why hasn’t motorsports become more welcoming when even other traditionally male-dominated sports like boxing and mixed martial arts are now so legitimately female friendly? Well, I suspect it’s because the very top of motorsport is still dominated by the last remnants of an old boy’s club that still sees the primary role for females in motorsport as umbrella holder on pit row. The official who wrote Taru Rinne to tell her she was no longer welcome in Grand Prix motorcycle racing? According to Taru, you now know him as Formula One’s supremo. hmm yes, Bernie Ecclestone.

Sad story

Like I said, male dominance and no surprise in Bernie's part really. Oh what a joyful spirit this man has brought into F1 racing all these decades. Only a class apart for women will help women grow to the top of motorsports, being competitive to their own. The male sports world will never tolerate females competing at the highest levels against them.

 

[pjlx911]

That coupled with the women with the best results on avg. raced in the 70's and 80's where the cars had way less driving aids, more power, and was generally more raw and harder to driver..

Wait? What? References? Last time I checked there were hardly any women in racing in both generations, and certainly not enough to necessitate that kind of quote.