Grassroots opportunities key to getting girls into F1, says Chadwick

Jamie Chadwick has no doubt that female drivers will rise to the top in motor sports if enough of them start at the bottom.

Britain's leading woman racer, a triple champion in the now-defunct W Series who is now eyeing a career in the world endurance championship, has her own initiative to get girls into karting and onto a motor sports path.

The key, she told reporters in a recent interview, is not only to awaken a passion for speed at an early age, but also to create an inviting and welcoming environment for young women in a sport still dominated by men.

"I had an older brother which helped, but I was the only girl there (at the go-kart track) and, yeah, you're eight to 12 years old and it's not necessarily an environment that, you know, is the most inviting," she recalled.

"I wanted to create a community, a championship that young girls can come in and make friends, come with their friends, enjoy the race and get into it in a really natural way ... and we've seen amazing uptake.

"I think this is what is going to ultimately help all the other initiatives that we see going on across the board, to continue to encourage more female talent into the sport."

Chadwick, 28, said starting earlier — as young as four years old — was one of the biggest advantages that men had in motor sports, with parents often more inclined to push boys than girls, because so few women were racing at the top.

This month marks 50 years since a woman last raced in Formula One, the late Maria Grazia Lella Lombardi at the Austrian Grand Prix on Aug 15,1976.

The Italian qualified her Brabham BT44B in 24th position and finished 12th, last of those still running.

Lombardi, who died at the age of 50 in 1992, remains the only woman to have finished a grand prix in a scoring position — sixth in Spain in 1975, when half points were awarded.

Many more women are coming into the sport, but Chadwick said it would still take time for the grassroots pathways to really produce results.

Formula One, with 22 drivers and only one rookie this year, remains an impossible dream for almost all drivers, whatever their gender.

"You look at the percentages of those that make it to the top, it's very, very small," said Chadwick of elite motor sports in general.

"But when there's already such a small percentage of female drivers at the beginning, the odds are already stacked against you.

"It's going to take a long time probably to get anything close to 50-50. I don't know what it is at the moment, but it's probably about 80-20 at best."

Chadwick said all-female initiatives such as F1 Academy, or W Series when it existed, had catered for those women already in the sport, including some who had quit after running out of resources, but were then able to return.

"I'm confident that it will be much better for this next generation coming through," she said. "I think we are definitely going to see the highest quality of female racing drivers we've ever seen in the next five years, in my opinion. No doubt about that."

REUTERS