Records were smashed last summer as a peak of 17.5 million fans in the UK watched England’s women’s football team lift the European Championship trophy, a clear sign interest in female sport is on the rise.
But with the men’s Euro 2020 final between Italy and France attracting a UK audience of 30.95 million in comparison, there is clearly still a long way to go.
The same goes for female participation in sport, and motor racing is no different. So what is motorsport doing to end the 30-year wait for the next female competitor in Formula 1?
Women in Sports, a charity dedicated to transforming sport for the benefit of every woman and girl in the UK, found a large gender gap in team sport participation in a recent survey. While 58% of boys take part at least once a week, the corresponding figure for girls is just 40%. Girls also continue to have lower motivation than boys throughout every age group, especially in relation to enjoyment, confidence and competence.
Though motorsport is open for all to participate it arguably remains even harder for women to get involved with than conventional sports. To succeed you need backing from a young age from teams and sponsors, as well as parents willing and able to fund you. As we can see, this is not happening anything like as often as it needs to.
W Series was marketed as the saviour for women in motorsport. A free-to-enter championship designed just for women, in the hope of eliminating the financial barriers for women, raise their profiles in the sport and send them up the ladder to F1.
Starting in 2019 (though put on temporary hiatus during 2020 due to the pandemic) the series was a success in many ways and helped give women a platform to race against each other. Its profile was further elevated by its addition to the Formula 1 calendar.
But over its three seasons it did not achieve its stated goal of propelling a female racer into a higher series. Jamie Chadwick, who won all three W Series seasons, kept returning to the championship as few opportunities presented themselves to her elsewhere. The CEO of Formula 2, Bruno Michel, admitted he couldn’t understand why Chadwick struggled to move onto the next phase, after reports she was approached to race in F3, admitting he had heard of discussions with one team that fell through.
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