Formula 1 Plans New Female Racing Series
Formula 1 is planning a new all-female racing series, weeks after the FIA and Liberty Media curtailed the W Series season.
The series would form part of the Formula 2 and Formula 3 feeder pyramid and could come as early as 2023. It will be seen as an opportunity to increase the opportunities for female drivers to enter Formula 1.
The proposed championship, which would be for young drivers aged between 16 and 22 and have upwards of 15 racers in its inaugural season, would run alongside the similarly all-female W Series, which has recently hit financial difficulties and cancelled its last three events in 2022 due to a lack of funding.
The W Series was supposed to hold its penultimate round of the year in support of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix, before its final races were cancelled.
The existing feeling in Formula 1 is that many of the racers within the W Series are not young enough to have a realistic chance of making Formula 1’s feeder categories or the main championship itself. Therefore, a new series focused on younger drivers, is viewed to have more realistic chances of delivering a female driver to motorsports biggest racing series.
“There is not enough representation across the board, within the industry.“
LEWIS HAMILTON
Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion and current Mercedes driver, publicly criticised Formula 1 over the weekend for not affording more help to the W Series.
“There is not enough representation across the board, within the industry.
“And there’s not really a pathway for those young, amazing drivers to even get to Formula 1, and then you have some people who say we’re never going to see [another] female F1 driver ever. So that’s not a good narrative to be putting out.”
On the topic of the W Series, a Formula 1 spokesperson, responded, “We are committed to ensuring the best possible opportunities for women to get into our sport and to get the skills and experience necessary to get to the top of F1.”
The last woman to race in Formula 1 was Italian driver Lella Lombardi, taking part in the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix for constructor Brabham-Ford.
