Despite the obvious disparity in quantity of male and female racers, there is no lack of pedigree for women in motorsport. Several women have made it to the top, the most notable of these being France’s Michèle Mouton, an icon of the World Rally Championship known for wrestling equally iconic cars around Europe’s toughest stages.
She debuted in WRC in 1974, racing an Alpine A110 at the Tour de Corse and putting in such an impressive performance that she was accused of having a “special” engine. Her solo success won her a transfer to the newly founded Audi Sport in 1980. This move saw Mouton take her first steps into Group B rally in an Audi Quattro, a 300-horsepower turbocharged monster.
This move saw Mouton take her first steps into Group B rally in an Audi Quattro, a 300-horsepower turbocharged monster
She won her first career rally that year at Sanremo, becoming the first woman in WRC history to do so. Success became a habit for Mouton, who went on to finish second overall in 1982 and retiring with 162 stage wins to her name. She went on to compete in both the Race of Champions and Dakar Rally before retiring and became the first president of the FIA Women and Motor Sport Commission.
Mouton was not the only trailblazing female driver to debut in 1974, as Lella Lombardi, Formula One’s only female points scorer, started her first race. She had been funding her own racing career for years prior, buying a car to compete in Formula Monza in 1965 and quickly progressing towards the upper echelons of racing.
On debut, Lombardi became the first woman to qualify for an F1 race since Maria Teresa de Filippis did so in 1958
She earned a race seat at March Engineering, and on debut became the first woman to qualify for an F1 race since Maria Teresa de Filippis did so in 1958. Despite the March car being somewhat underpowered relative to the rest of the grid, Lombardi recorded a sixth-place finish in Barcelona, receiving half a point for her efforts. After F1, she went on to endurance racing, appearing at Le Mans on four occasions before testing the waters of NASCAR in 1977.
As well as being one of F1’s five female drivers, she is part of an even more exclusive club as one of just two openly LGBTQ+ racers alongside Mike Beuttler.
More recently, Iron Dames, WEC’s only current all female team, have won the 24 Hours of Spa, Danica Patrick has won races in IndyCar, and Sabine Schmitz has made a name for herself as Queen of the Nürburgring, but Lella Lombardi remains the last woman to have raced in F1.
Its not for lack of trying. There have been multiple pushes to increase female involvement in motorsport in recent years, from Alpine’s Rac(H)er karting team to the creation of W Series, but these don’t seem have had the desired success.
W Series has emerged as a badly misguided diversity effort. The championship was introduced as an alternative F1 feeder series in 2019, completing just two and a half seasons before collapsing financially and folding. Its three seasons had just one champion in Jamie Chadwick, who has since only managed a move to IndyNxt. She is one of the only drivers in the series to have graduated to a more advanced Formula.
W Series made two crucial mistakes
As a feeder series, W Series made two crucial mistakes. The first of these was to allow Chadwick to return after winning her first championship. Had she been made to move on as would the champion of Formula Two or Three, W Series could have improved its product by allowing other drivers a shot at the throne and proved its worth as a series by moving Chadwick on into higher formulae.
The second shortcoming of W Series was in its concept. The idea in theory had great intentions: to get more women into the top tiers of motorsport. The execution, however, was poor. To segregate female drivers into their own separate series with minimal connection to official FIA competition did little to help them break into the F1 sphere, serving instead to emphasize their separation from it.
There is hope, however. The FIA have recently announced F1 Academy, a replacement for W Series. It will sit just below F3 on the junior formula pyramid, and will be contested by teams with established formula racing heritage, a fact which should lead to a more concrete pathway into the world of F1 for female drivers.
Chaired by Susie Wolff, one of the most successful female racing drivers of the last decade, F1 Academy seems set to be far more promising than W Series ever was. Its inaugural season will start in 2023, and will be under heavy scrutiny as to whether it can deliver on its promise.
To list the factors that have kept women away from Formula One for so long would be nigh on impossible, but the building blocks are in place to make it more accessible. It might take years, but the intent to make a change is there and backed by all the right people. It has been 47 years since Lella Lombardi bowed out of F1, it is high time we had another woman behind the wheel.
