90% male across all racing categories kind of explains it all. It's really just a numbers game. If the percentages get closer to say 70% male, 30% female, then maybe we'll see someone break through? Then of course, there are all the other factors like super license points and getting enough financial backing. It would be a tough road.
@@KymIllmanYes. And stay there. You mentioned Lindsay Brewer. She raced in carts and then she was basically told she had to quit and concentrate on school. She went almost 5 years without racing and had to get back into it on her own. I don't know if she would have been any better than she is now, but it definitely couldn't have hurt. American ARCA driver Toni Breidinger kind of had the same issue. She went several years without racing.
Having followed club Karting here in the UK for many years I’d say its more like >95% male and the point you make about needing that disparity to narrow is spot on.
Dude, have you thought that perhaps not many girls are simply not interested in karting? And then, how they are going to compensate for the lack of testosterone? 🤔
Absolutely! I'm surprised he didn't mention Juju Noda, who just became the first female Japanese driver to race in Super Formula. She has an impressive resume so far and I think she's actually closer to getting a race seat in F1 than any of the others.
There have been five female racing drivers who have entered world championship grands prix - of whom just two qualified and actually raced. The first woman to compete in an F1 grand prix was Italy’s Maria Teresa de Filippis. She participated in five races in 1958 and 1959, qualifying for three. Her best race finish was tenth. Another Italian, Lella Lombardi, took part in 17 grands prix between 1974 and 1976. She remains the only woman to score a world championship point - well, half a point - after finishing sixth in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix in a rain-shortened race. In 1976, British Olympic ski racer Divina Galica switched sports and tried to secure a spot in the British Grand Prix. This marked the only time more than one female driver (Lombardi and Galica) has participated in qualifying for a grand prix - unfortunately, both failed to make the race grid. Four years later, South African Desiré Wilson also tried to qualify for the British Grand Prix, and again fell short. But the same year, she achieved another milestone by becoming the only woman to clinch victory in any type of F1 race, triumphing at Brands Hatch in the British Formula One Championship. The most recent female driver to take part in the F1 world championship was Italy’s Giovanna Amati, who, at the start of the 1992 season, joined the British Brabham team. However, she encountered difficulties in qualifying and was unable to secure a spot in any of the three races she entered, before being replaced by male drivers. After that, a further two decades would pass before Britain’s Susie Wolff became the most recent female driver to participate in F1 during the 2014 season, but only in some practice sessions. Beyond the driver’s seat, women have held various leading roles in F1. Most notably, Monisha Kaltenborn served as team principal for Swiss team Sauber in 2012 until 2017, and Claire Williams was deputy team principal of Williams Racing from 2013-2020. Female engineers and technicians can also play crucial roles in the development and performance of F1 cars. For example, Hannah Schmitz is the trailblazing principal strategy engineer of current F1 world champion, Max Verstappen.
Juju Noda has just done her first race in super formula. She is the youngest driver in the category at 18 and has big Japanese sponsors. If she can develop in super formula over the next few years, she will surely get F1 test and development opportunities that could lead to a drive. If she attends the Japanese GP, Kym will see her social media following if he posts pictures or interviews her.
yea Juju is my best bet. I genuinely think that she can make it to Formula 1 one day. It's really exciting that she got a seat in Super Formula this year. Let's see how it goes. I wish her the best.
@Ho3n3r the weight reduction was in euro formula for the half season she did. It was a factor in her race win, but she was within the rules set by the category and it was overblow in the reporting. Importantly, she won the Zinox championship in an equal dallara 320, the same car used in super formula lights, so the step up is the same as the SF lights champion. If she doesn't do well its because she didn't do well in that car not because she's a woman in a high power machine.
Everyone forgetting that she was using illegal engines for the lap records and a unfair advantage in EuroFormula her and her dad are frauds she’s got nothing on the F1 Academy drivers.
i mean imo with f1 academy, there is enough ways to prove yourself, to get into f2, etc. and then, if you prove yourself or have a lot of money you can get into f1. But the main problem is that karting is really expensive, and not many girls are in there, and as a hobby, barely any people can do it anyways from a young age
Hey Kim, my wife worked for over a year at Ogilvy and Mather in New York. She was assigned on the Danica Patrick account to manage her commercial interests - get sponsors and keep those sponsors happy with the marketing voice for their brands. To be honest, there has been no more successful female driver in any category, not necessarily on the track - but off it. Look back at her career and the brands she was aligned to. Look at the coverage she gained them - look at the Sports Illustrated and such front covers and more. Her peak pre-dates social media, so a lot of it was traditional print as online was transitioning. It shows that even for mostly a mid-grid on track performance you can create all the right buzz, earn a great income and get your name known. Danica has the attitude and the business acumen to make sure she gets herself where she wants to be. A lot of other females can learn a lot from studying her.
What's the requirement - Super License - At least 18 years old - healthy If you already have the basics you can enter if you either have - real skills - tons of money
The one motorsport that has been and is fully female friendly at the top levels of the sport is NHRA Drag Racing. Since the 60's when Shirley Muldowney broke through in Top Fuel women have competed with the men equally and have won many Championships. None of the fans even think about the fact that a woman is driving versus a man, they just race.
I don’t believe drag racing takes much driving talent, the most important part is leaving on time if you practice enough anyone can get good at cutting a light then your basically just hanging on, that’s why they are competitive. It’s more about the build or setup of the car.
@@KZ-dy1lxI think you under estimate how much talent it takes to drive a top fuel funny car or a pro mod car. It’s not a matter of just hitting the throttle and holding on. And they are dealing with insane G’s and vibrations.
I don't think it's anything to do with being physically able to drive the car, it's if they are good enough. You look at the absolute talent that dominates F3 and F2 and still doesn't get an F1 seat. Whoever gets promoted to F1 needs to have a great junior career and deserve it, not because of their gender. If a woman is dominating F3 and F2, then she deserves to be in the conversation, but if we are promoting someone just because of their gender, then we may as well go back to pay drivers, not the drivers with the most talent. My concern is if a woman wins a championship like F2 but doesn't get promoted, people will be calling it 'sexist' etc etc. But look at the amount of F2 champions who don't get promoted.
@@You_Do_CareStroll isn’t as bad as you think. His career especially his F3 part was impressive. He’s is more heavily criticized more than other drivers because his dad. While yes I’d agree he wouldn’t be in F1 without his dad, he has had some impressive performances including podiums and pole at Turkey in the wet weather. Yes he crashes more often than he should, but he crashed less than Mick and gets disproportionate amounts of hate.
It would be outstanding to see at least a woman’s F1 like the f1 academy but in the actual f1 cars. What the f1 academy is missing for me is the faster cars. I really hope at some point we get either a woman driver on the grid or a full woman’s league in the f1 cars
Honestly the problem is aspirations a junior level, you get girls like Ashley Fiolek, Hailie Deegan, Toni Breidlinger, The force sisters. Jennifer Jo Cobb, Leah Pruett. People highlight the fact there isn’t a female F1 driver as they assume only way to have a successful motorsport career is through F1.
I was watching an interview with Max Verstappen recently. I forget who was interviewing him or what outlet she worked for but the lady asked Max a question about what he felt about his F1 legacy and he said he did not really care about that but would look back at the time as part of his journey in life. She then asked him a question about what his next chapter looked like and Max did not really say specifically but I got the impression that SIM Racing would be part of it as he got very serious about SIM Racing and said that it is not just a game (the reporter started smirking when he started discussing it) and he wants to help develop SIM into the ultimate level. Maybe Max thinks that the price of Karting has gotten too out of hand and that it will end up killing motorsports and limit the development ladder. He did not say that but I could tell that this was a hot button topic for him. If a Karting career costs $2M+ I would think that the elevation of the realism of SIM with VR development could greatly reduce this cost.
I constantly am thinking this. How are there constantly this many people that have this level of money to go racing. Surely that pipeline will begin to wither out at some point. And when that line runs too thin, sim racing is where the world's next IRL racing drivers will come from.
Jimmy Broadbent put out a video recently rating Joe Rogan's sim racing rig. Price? $70k lol. I know what you mean though. For the price of a decent PC, wheel and pedals anyone can get a start in sim racing; you don't need one of those floating chair things on hydraulics with triple 4K screens.
@@deanchur The only thing that makes it expensive is the motion rigs, all of the other hardware in that rig is less than £10k so I guess thats a little more achievable
@@KymIllman not one female in the last 30 years have proven nearly good enough to be in F1. Yes, representation is low and that needs to be sorted - as well as the power steering issue in lower categories - but F1 should not be for window dressing, it should be merit-based. That also means we need to sort out existing issues with regards to current male drivers not being there on merit but rather daddy money/being from certain nationalities, but that keeps being swept under the carpet as well by the bodies in control.
As it has been for Stroll? Just to name the last... but in the 30+ years I watched F1 there's been a big number of male drivers who were supported more by sponsors than by ability. Other then that I agree with you that there should be more women start going into karting and that from there on it should only be based on merit @@Ho3n3r
Pretty bad to have Lindsay Brewer in the thumbnail when she was almost 3-4 seconds slower per lap in NXT while Chadwick actually qualified 10th but got unlucky in T1
Agreed. She is purely a publicity stunt supported by claims of success that are actually untruths. She literally is damaging opportunities for capable women drivers.
@@KymIllmani have one Question! Do you realy believe Sophia can make it to F2 or even F1? I dont see it coming! It will not happen! I like her a lot! I admire her! But she is just NOT good enough! Why nobody has the Balls and say her the Truth? Say me? Do you realy believe she has it? The first Weekend this Year was embarrassing! She was talking about points but she was dead last
@@goldenboy860 Even in F3 where everyone has the same basic car there's big differences between the teams, mainly due to Car Engineers who are better at tweaking mechanical things, Race Engineers with better Car Setup skills, better analysis of Car performance, etc. (Sophia would be a way better source on this than me though.) At the end of the day she beat all her male team-mates in 2023 and if the car setup proves decent can out-perform the car, which is all you can ask for. As to her team being one of the slow ones note in 2023 her team and one other were the only ones to get a single points finish out of all the races, the 3rd worst team got 14 point finishes. With 18 races and 3 cars per race that's 1 points finish in 54 team attempts, she scored it, she also got all 6 of the best finishes by the team in those 54 entries, no other driver finished above 17th (her best was 7th). Oh and never analyse a driver on a single result, I see Lando got four 17th places in F1 in 2023, that doesn't mean he's one of the slowest drivers in F1. A big problem is teams want drivers with attached money (as money may or may not make the World go round, but more of it certainly makes a Race Car go faster) and for some reason Women get less sponsorship than Men. (In F1 the top drivers come with loads of attached sponsorship money, hiring Lewis, Max, Charles, etc. brings in a ton of cash, way more than any driver who is suggested to be paying for a seat, not that anyone really is.) All this makes it harder for Women to get into a leading team. Even in F1, where there are no slow drivers, a slow car means being down the field. Really all Sophia can do IMHO is hope she gets a better F3 Car over time, but then there's the money issue, you need to be a lot faster than anyone to get into a better team without it, which is unlikely in the lower formulas. BTW it's said in F1 that all the drivers are within a second of each other, and the rest of the gaps are down to the Cars.
@@JonInLondon I know that in F3 and F2 the Teams are making the difference with engineering and Setup! I have a good understanding of Motorsport 😉 But we hear the Same Bullshit from her Year after Year after Year! Last Year she was realy good in my Opinion! Like you said, she did get out the maximum of her package! But it seems she stuck again! There is no Progress at all! She should at least drive where Noel is! But she is again 25th - 30th like last Year with a much better Team! Maybe its not the best Team but it is better! The Point is! It is simpley not enough! There are Drivers like Arvid Lindblad who gets in a F3 Car and is bloody Fast straight from the beginning! Sophia is in her 3rd Year in F3! She will not get a 4th! Not with her Result's And if she dont Fights for Points a couple of Races this Year she will be out of the Alpine Programm for Sure! Thats the hard truth!
@@goldenboy860Es ist doch jedes Jahr das Gleiche. Ihre Leistungen werden immer relativiert und schöngeredet. Langsam kann man es echt nicht mehr ernst nehmen. Sie fährt seit Jahren konstant auf den hinteren Plätzen rum, aber an ihr liegt es natürlich nie immer ist etwas oder jemand anderes schuld daran. Sie fuhr auch schon für bessere Teams als PHM, aber hat dort auch nicht mehr gezeigt. Außerdem kannst du auch in einem schwächeren Team gut performen wenn du das Talent mitbringst. Logan Sargeant fuhr damals im Charouz (dem schwächsten Team) auf Platz 7. in der Gesamtwertung und gewann zwei Rennen. Auch das letzte Jahr sollt man mal in Relation setzten, sie hatte nur einen durchgängigen Teamkollegen mit Faria, der komplett überfordert in der F3 war und ein ähnlicher Maßstab war wie Deledda vor ein paar Jahren. Sie hat einen guten Job gemacht mit dem Punkten in Spa, das will ich nicht bestreiten, aber wenn du ernsthaft weiterkommen willst dann reicht es halt nicht einmal mit Glück in die Punkte zu kommen. Kein männlicher Fahrer wäre nach so wenig Ergebnissen in so vielen Jahren (zur Erinnerung, sie fährt seit 2018 in der F3 wenn man die Vorgängerserie noch mitzählt) noch weiterhin Chancen bekommen oder gar in eine Driver Academy aufgenommen werden. Aber klar sie wird ja von allen Seiten immer nur benachteiligt. Ich will auch gar nicht behaupten, sie wäre eine schlechte Fahrerin, aber Anspruch und Wirklichkeit liegen bei ihr halt extrem weit auseinander. Wenn sie dieses Jahr nicht halbwegs performt sollte es das gewesen sein mit Formelsport.
F2 may not have power steering, but that's not the problem. F1 races are almost twice as long. F2 may be bit harder on the arms, but the problem all drivers face, is higher G-forces for a much extended time. Olly Bearman's head surround was crushed on his Ferrari this week because he couldn't keep his head up for the duration of the race. At almost 10 seconds a lap faster for double the time, is a big hurdle even for men, who have an obvious advantage.
A woman has already competed in Formula One, Lella Lombardi back in the 1970s. She even scored half a point during the 1975 season! Though, it would be cool to see another woman compete in F1 again 👍
A South African woman by the name of Desire Wilson also competed in the 60's & 70's. She is to date the only woman to win an F1 race, although it was not a championship race. I have personally witnessed both of these women racing at Kyalami in the South African GP during that time.
@@elena0351 Ha HA HA yes maybe, but what I mean is, I don't care if it is a she ore a he ore a whatever, driving the race car, as long as it is not a person ending up in the car because of his/her/it's gender.
I was interested in DC’s story about his sister. The late Dale Earnhardt had 3 kids who raced in late model stocks (would be like an early single seater on the F1 ladder) in the early-mid 1990s, two sons and a daughter. Everyone who raced against them felt his daughter was the best racer. However, it was her younger brother, Dale Jr, who went on to become a top racer. Nowadays, Kelley is an extremely talented and influential businesswoman in the NASCAR world, co-owns a race team, and is her brother’s manager. But she is the first to admit that if she were born 20 years later, her life path might have been different
I look forward to the day a woman earns her spot into F1. "More girls in carting will lead to more opportunities to get into F1." Excellent video, Kym!
It would be interesting to add a short review of the past F1 female drivers. Were they a novelty or a publicity stunt, or did they earn their way to the job? Were the money and the cars so different back then that it's not comparable to today?
There have NOT been any, he literally says "I hope to photograph the first female f1 driver" and Susie Wolfe says "we hope to get a female driver by 2030"
There is another comment here listing all the female drivers who raced or attempted to race an F1 car. There is no doubt that in the past, there was outright discrimination against women ( I read Desire Wilson's biography written by her husband and it was appalling) but I don't think that is the case today in getting opportunities. They do though face a problem on track in karting and lower categories from male drivers who want to wreck them intentionally.
As some one who’s races on the weekends in my Miata.. when I look over at the other driver I don’t care at all whos next to me. If you got race pace we racing
Thank you, Kym! I discovered you in pre-season this year and now you're becoming one of my favorite F1 channels this season! Love what you do, keep it up.
Truth is most men are not capable of being competitive in F1, so given the strength requirements and depth perception needed, it is safe to say that even fewer women are capable of becoming competitive F1 drivers. Will there be female F1 drivers in the future? Sure, but they will likely be there to satisfy the politically correct environment, and not because they are the best drivers.
Honestly with a potential lighter body weight and smaller build I'm surprised there are not more of them in this time when space and kg are key. Saving 10kg on a driver and possibly 3/4 inches of height giving them more room to sit lower etc, from an engineer point of view it would be a dream. Think of at horse jockeys are all midgits basically.
Why do they have a separate category where the cars are not close to formula 1? Why not have a championship where they use year or two year old F1 cars
Yeah. Look up Enzo Mucci on UA-cam. He had a video a few months ago laying out the total costs to even get a sniff at F1. It was something like $10 million in total. And as someone said in the video, there hundreds, if not thousands, of drivers who spent that and never got a shot at an F1 seat.
You can't imagine how happy this video made me. I'm a huge fan of yours and F1 from Colombia and seeing Tatiana on the video made me love you even more! Thank you for such an excellent content.
Lindsay Brewer😂 She was slow in Indy Pro 2000 and she was dead slow at St Pete's last weekend in Indy NXT. Everyone knows how she got her drive and it didn't have anything to do with talent.
Kym… you should look up Demi Chalkias - who is a super talented Canadian racing driver. You should interview her when you come for the Canadian Grand Prix!
A driver's career starts really young, and when you are between the age of 5 -8, most young girls simply don't have an interest for such sports. There are of course exceptions and girls raised in families that enjoy motorsports. I feel like it's a fact that is often overlooked when people bring up stats. That's okay if there is less than 10% of women in the sport and there is no need to try to force this ratio. I think the real problem is, when women do make it, it's important to provide equal opportunities.
Full marks to the women cause. Admittedly when I was sailing competitively 40 years ago I was sceptical about women in the sport, but I was never against them competing. It's attitudes that still need to change. I love the way that in all sports things are changing rapidly.
A woman has already competed in Formula One: Lella Lombardi back in the 1970s. She even scored half a point in 1975! But I think any fan would agree that it would be cool to see another woman race in F1 again 👍
Sophia makes an excellent point about the sponsorship side of things, although male or female even that can be a classic case of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'. If you look at rallying, there's a lot of female competitors (co-drivers mainly). It seems to be due to the differences in thinking. We have a great community of women competing in the New Zealand Rally Championship so it seems like such a normal part of the sport.
The problem with saying it's purely a numbers game is that if 90% of racing drivers are male, then there should be 2 women already driving in F1. It will happen eventually. Like Kym, I just hope I'm still alive to see it.
I seem to recall that 1 or 2 women raced in F1 in the 1950’s admittedly not very successful. Today women fly F16’s. So I think the right kinda woman could race in F1 today with reasonable success.
So, the only thing.... yes for F1 as it's assisted, but no for m v f in F2.... then there's dilemma, is F2 then softened to be inclusive leading of positive discimination
Until a woman can win a major international single seater or sportscar championship, against the top male drivers in either category, it isn't realistic to expect them to reach Formula 1, apart from as a marketing or publicity exercise. In recent times, possibly only Danica Patrick, Katherine Legge and Simona de Silvestro have demonstrated sufficient ability to race at the top level on a regular basis, but F1 is another step up from anything else. Right now, perhaps Doriane Pin and Lilou Wadoux might have the talent to get there, but it could be a few more years before they've got the experience and skills required to earn a chance on merit alone. I hope a woman can make it to F1 eventually, but it will be incredibly difficult for anyone who can finally make the jump, Winning outright at Le Mans, or becoming F2 champion, however, would bring that possibility much closer, which is definitely a realistic ambition for any female racer.
One of the problems is that women are going through the same routes as men, karting as pre-teens and tweens, Formula Ford and such. I would like to see what happens if women switch sports and come to motorsports later. Recruit women from downhill skiing and mountain bike racing (requires strength, they understand racing lines and high speed crashes) or from gymnastics (small, physically strong, able to make fine adjustments at high speed) when they are 16-17 and put them into karting. Shorten the time in each level and bring women in around 25, not 20 as with men. They may not last as long, but they'll be much stronger and have the same physical skills. Olympic ski jumping has proven that women of the same height and build as men can produce the same results (jumping the same distances on the hills).
Finding reasons why it hasn’t happened is easy. Finding a way to make it happen is allot harder. Try to get a percentage of the males that start racing that eventually make it to F1. Multiply that percentage with the amount of females that start racing and the outcome will be smaller than 1. Simple statistics, that doesn’t make it impossible. Just really hard.
Based on what we saw in Jeddah from the F1 Academy, I think we are far from it. It was Total Carnage, and most of those girls are just a safety hazard on track.
Michelle Mouton is proof that a woman can definitely be as good or better then men at driving. I really hope we see a talented woman get into F1 on skill and not money
Danica Patrick drove indycar- no powersteering. The problem is, no other females will ever match her level. If they want to compete against men, they need to drop the female F1 academy gimmick etc. and actually race against tough competition.
There’s lots of female drivers that are better than Danica Patrick. She comes from money and marketing with hundreds of millions shelled out by her sponsors. Like many female sports, the ones with the most sponsorship aren’t necessarily the best, but have the most marketing potential. Notice how most of the girls driving in the feeder series are attractive? That not a coincidence and says more about humanity and how the world actually works than raw talent alone.
@@sunsetgarage755 LOL who is better than Danica??? List them. Almost every driver came from money, gotta have money to start karting, travel etc. She took advantage of getting sponsors for being good. You don’t place qualify 5th in Indy500 with money alone. lmao more females should follow her route. She did all the hard work, and now everyone knows her and her brand. I can’t think of any other female drivers that are more recognizable than her. I’m no Danica fan, but I can tell you-she created her brand by herself. Now you got F1 forcing sponsors/racing like it’s a handout instead of getting it on merit, these women aren’t going to thrive in motorsports by competition against each other.
@@herewegoagain7403 If you can’t think of a better female driver than Danica Patrick in the entire history of female Motorsport, then that says more about your ignorance than Danica’s talent, or lack thereof. If Danica had even half the talent of Michelle Mouton, she may have even managed to finish one NASCAR race in the top ten instead of crashing out, taking other drivers with her & then blaming anyone but herself, or just finishing towards the back, and very seldom on the lead lap even with multiple safety car restarts to bunch up the field. She was a joke.
@@sunsetgarage755 Michelle Mouton? Doesn’t ring a bell bc she’s irrelevant. However I can think of plenty. Jamie Chadwick, the iron lynx trio line up, Sarah fisher, Susie wolff just to name a few. But nobody can match up to what Patrick has done and her brand. Like what Max Verstappen said, females are welcomed, but should not be in a slow ass car. They need to be doing what Patrick did and race with the top drivers.
I don't think a woman will ever be able to compete in F1 until they have power brakes. It takes well in excess of 100 kgs of force to brake, and I've seen numbers in the 150s.
Should be noted that while there's never been a top level female Indycar driver there have been a few midfield/back marker drivers so they are physically capable. Danica Patrick was probably the best of the group and remember she was 5 feet tall (152 cm) and not much above 100 lbs (45 kg) so not a massive woman by any stretch. Remember, Indycar does not have power steering.
Thats not the question,the question should be can they can the car competitive and safe not just there safety it's the other drivers plus everyone watching in the stands. My answer would be NO. They do not have the muscle build up in there body to be safe.
Wow... the video as well as most of the comments are reasonable. Kym must have a good audience. Maybe someday with rising popularity of F1 with woman. It would be exciting.
It's not a gender debate or political correctness. In racing what really matters is the timesheet. If you were a team manager, you would only want to hire someone with the potential to win something, right? And that's before the other considerations like physicals, sponsorship money, etc. (as clearly explained in the video). I remember when Susie Woolf didn't make a Williams F1 drive, she went on live breakfast TV and said the reason was because she's a woman (never mind how she got the test driver seat in the first place if it wasn't for a Woolf connection). Of course I don't get to see her Williams timesheets, but I did when she participated in Race Of Champions! As you know, in ROC you have to drive different categories of identical cars, and her times were "seriously" slower than e.g. David Coulthard, her UK team mate. So, yes I think women can make it in F1, but they have to cut it like everyone else.
By the advances shown by Redbull there is nooooo reason in the world a woman could not turn laps as fast as the field in the #1 Redbull car. Tech has bypassed physical ability.
Neck strength. Bearman's head was flopping all over the place. A woman is going to come in with a head that weights 90% as much and helmet that weights the same and gut it out with far less muscle mass and narrower spine/shoulder geometry? How?
It’s a bit like in a speech of Adam Rutherford (geneticist and podcaster) about racism. He picked the Lack of black worldclass swimmers and talks about what science cooked up in terms of theories over the time and really the main factor is that at least in the US black kid just don’t learn swimming, so they are never seen or spottete by a talent scout…
When they first showed the clip of the accident it was hard to spot what happened as it was so fast. Sofia was very lucky as I'm sure there were enough solid objects to make it disasterous.
came to see if anyone actually mentions breaking, as much as steering is not a big deal, pushing F1 breaks is, from previous video i saw it requires 150kg of force..
Lindsay is also a model so you can't compare her social media to the other women. She is like the Livvy Dunne of motorsports. Women can certainly make it, but there are only 22 drivers.
Why didn't you mention F1 Academy, i thought the whole point of that was to bring women into driving f1? I also thought those drivers were somewhere alongside f3 or f2 drivers, guess not, where did they get the f1 academy drivers from?
Honestly, we all know why Lindsay Brewer has more followers than many of the guys, right? Same reason there are more female 'influencers' than male. Same reason there are more females on Only Fans than males and why they make more money than males. Anyone remember Anna Kornakova?
Auto racing, and specifically F1, is one of the few sports women can compete equally with men. What will it take? Just to have more women start getting into the sport at a young age, and that takes time. Same can be said for female lawyers and doctors and ____________ . Once there are more females in the pool, they will eventually level the ratio of male to female participants.
From what I've experienced in sport it's going to take an exceptional talented female to rise to the challenges... facts are this men are stronger mentally, physically have faster reactions and can sustain stresses for longer periods... these are just facts in especially sport.. hence why at lower categories women can and have been very competitive, look at Michele Muton, runner up In WRC championship in 1982.. HOWEVER I am going to say I can't see anyone in current generations who have that raw tuffness grit and determination to make it.. today seems softer somewhat entitled and expected to be helped to make it there.. thats my observation. I would truly love to see a female like any driver make it on pure merit and succeed.
90% male across all racing categories kind of explains it all. It's really just a numbers game. If the percentages get closer to say 70% male, 30% female, then maybe we'll see someone break through? Then of course, there are all the other factors like super license points and getting enough financial backing. It would be a tough road.
Gotta start young in karts
@@KymIllmanYes. And stay there. You mentioned Lindsay Brewer. She raced in carts and then she was basically told she had to quit and concentrate on school. She went almost 5 years without racing and had to get back into it on her own. I don't know if she would have been any better than she is now, but it definitely couldn't have hurt. American ARCA driver Toni Breidinger kind of had the same issue. She went several years without racing.
Having followed club Karting here in the UK for many years I’d say its more like >95% male and the point you make about needing that disparity to narrow is spot on.
Dude, have you thought that perhaps not many girls are simply not interested in karting? And then, how they are going to compensate for the lack of testosterone? 🤔
That's exactly what the F3 driver said at the start.
I think its gonna take someone coming from a racing family background, where the role models, support and drive behind them is.
Max and Kelly need to get Penelope started on karting!
Absolutely! I'm surprised he didn't mention Juju Noda, who just became the first female Japanese driver to race in Super Formula. She has an impressive resume so far and I think she's actually closer to getting a race seat in F1 than any of the others.
well thats kinda 80% of all male drivers now though, so its not that much of an advantage but it's almost a bare minimum requirement.
Lia Block hopefully
@@phillyphan595 Great call! She has the potential. So sad Ken isn't around to see her success in Extreme E.
There have been five female racing drivers who have entered world championship grands prix - of whom just two qualified and actually raced. The first woman to compete in an F1 grand prix was Italy’s Maria Teresa de Filippis. She participated in five races in 1958 and 1959, qualifying for three. Her best race finish was tenth. Another Italian, Lella Lombardi, took part in 17 grands prix between 1974 and 1976. She remains the only woman to score a world championship point - well, half a point - after finishing sixth in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix in a rain-shortened race.
In 1976, British Olympic ski racer Divina Galica switched sports and tried to secure a spot in the British Grand Prix. This marked the only time more than one female driver (Lombardi and Galica) has participated in qualifying for a grand prix - unfortunately, both failed to make the race grid.
Four years later, South African Desiré Wilson also tried to qualify for the British Grand Prix, and again fell short. But the same year, she achieved another milestone by becoming the only woman to clinch victory in any type of F1 race, triumphing at Brands Hatch in the British Formula One Championship.
The most recent female driver to take part in the F1 world championship was Italy’s Giovanna Amati, who, at the start of the 1992 season, joined the British Brabham team. However, she encountered difficulties in qualifying and was unable to secure a spot in any of the three races she entered, before being replaced by male drivers.
After that, a further two decades would pass before Britain’s Susie Wolff became the most recent female driver to participate in F1 during the 2014 season, but only in some practice sessions.
Beyond the driver’s seat, women have held various leading roles in F1. Most notably, Monisha Kaltenborn served as team principal for Swiss team Sauber in 2012 until 2017, and Claire Williams was deputy team principal of Williams Racing from 2013-2020.
Female engineers and technicians can also play crucial roles in the development and performance of F1 cars. For example, Hannah Schmitz is the trailblazing principal strategy engineer of current F1 world champion, Max Verstappen.
Juju Noda has just done her first race in super formula. She is the youngest driver in the category at 18 and has big Japanese sponsors. If she can develop in super formula over the next few years, she will surely get F1 test and development opportunities that could lead to a drive. If she attends the Japanese GP, Kym will see her social media following if he posts pictures or interviews her.
yea Juju is my best bet. I genuinely think that she can make it to Formula 1 one day. It's really exciting that she got a seat in Super Formula this year. Let's see how it goes. I wish her the best.
I thought she was only good because of the gender ballast, or is that not a thing in Super Formula?
she has been genuinely quick in everything she has been in...... but virtually unknown outside Japan
@Ho3n3r the weight reduction was in euro formula for the half season she did. It was a factor in her race win, but she was within the rules set by the category and it was overblow in the reporting. Importantly, she won the Zinox championship in an equal dallara 320, the same car used in super formula lights, so the step up is the same as the SF lights champion. If she doesn't do well its because she didn't do well in that car not because she's a woman in a high power machine.
Everyone forgetting that she was using illegal engines for the lap records and a unfair advantage in EuroFormula her and her dad are frauds she’s got nothing on the F1 Academy drivers.
i mean imo with f1 academy, there is enough ways to prove yourself, to get into f2, etc. and then, if you prove yourself or have a lot of money you can get into f1. But the main problem is that karting is really expensive, and not many girls are in there, and as a hobby, barely any people can do it anyways from a young age
Hey Kim, my wife worked for over a year at Ogilvy and Mather in New York. She was assigned on the Danica Patrick account to manage her commercial interests - get sponsors and keep those sponsors happy with the marketing voice for their brands. To be honest, there has been no more successful female driver in any category, not necessarily on the track - but off it. Look back at her career and the brands she was aligned to. Look at the coverage she gained them - look at the Sports Illustrated and such front covers and more. Her peak pre-dates social media, so a lot of it was traditional print as online was transitioning. It shows that even for mostly a mid-grid on track performance you can create all the right buzz, earn a great income and get your name known. Danica has the attitude and the business acumen to make sure she gets herself where she wants to be. A lot of other females can learn a lot from studying her.
What's the requirement
- Super License
- At least 18 years old
- healthy
If you already have the basics you can enter if you either have
- real skills
- tons of money
also big one: luck
You just need to be quick
The one motorsport that has been and is fully female friendly at the top levels of the sport is NHRA Drag Racing. Since the 60's when Shirley Muldowney broke through in Top Fuel women have competed with the men equally and have won many Championships. None of the fans even think about the fact that a woman is driving versus a man, they just race.
European champion Ida Zetterstrom will be over there in '24 with JCM Racing. 😎
Because they’re going in a straight line
I don’t believe drag racing takes much driving talent, the most important part is leaving on time if you practice enough anyone can get good at cutting a light then your basically just hanging on, that’s why they are competitive. It’s more about the build or setup of the car.
@@KZ-dy1lxI think you under estimate how much talent it takes to drive a top fuel funny car or a pro mod car. It’s not a matter of just hitting the throttle and holding on. And they are dealing with insane G’s and vibrations.
And that is how it should be... just keep things natural and don't make superficial and\or artificial adjustments to favor a certain outcome.
I don't think it's anything to do with being physically able to drive the car, it's if they are good enough. You look at the absolute talent that dominates F3 and F2 and still doesn't get an F1 seat. Whoever gets promoted to F1 needs to have a great junior career and deserve it, not because of their gender. If a woman is dominating F3 and F2, then she deserves to be in the conversation, but if we are promoting someone just because of their gender, then we may as well go back to pay drivers, not the drivers with the most talent. My concern is if a woman wins a championship like F2 but doesn't get promoted, people will be calling it 'sexist' etc etc. But look at the amount of F2 champions who don't get promoted.
100% true.
Exactly - Drugovich being a prime example.
What the hell do you mean by "go back to pay drivers" we never left...did you just magically forget about Mazepin and Lance Stroll?
@@You_Do_Care I haven't forgotten, but we've improved.
@@You_Do_CareStroll isn’t as bad as you think. His career especially his F3 part was impressive. He’s is more heavily criticized more than other drivers because his dad. While yes I’d agree he wouldn’t be in F1 without his dad, he has had some impressive performances including podiums and pole at Turkey in the wet weather. Yes he crashes more often than he should, but he crashed less than Mick and gets disproportionate amounts of hate.
It would be outstanding to see at least a woman’s F1 like the f1 academy but in the actual f1 cars. What the f1 academy is missing for me is the faster cars. I really hope at some point we get either a woman driver on the grid or a full woman’s league in the f1 cars
Honestly the problem is aspirations a junior level, you get girls like Ashley Fiolek, Hailie Deegan, Toni Breidlinger, The force sisters. Jennifer Jo Cobb, Leah Pruett. People highlight the fact there isn’t a female F1 driver as they assume only way to have a successful motorsport career is through F1.
I was watching an interview with Max Verstappen recently. I forget who was interviewing him or what outlet she worked for but the lady asked Max a question about what he felt about his F1 legacy and he said he did not really care about that but would look back at the time as part of his journey in life. She then asked him a question about what his next chapter looked like and Max did not really say specifically but I got the impression that SIM Racing would be part of it as he got very serious about SIM Racing and said that it is not just a game (the reporter started smirking when he started discussing it) and he wants to help develop SIM into the ultimate level. Maybe Max thinks that the price of Karting has gotten too out of hand and that it will end up killing motorsports and limit the development ladder. He did not say that but I could tell that this was a hot button topic for him.
If a Karting career costs $2M+ I would think that the elevation of the realism of SIM with VR development could greatly reduce this cost.
I constantly am thinking this. How are there constantly this many people that have this level of money to go racing. Surely that pipeline will begin to wither out at some point. And when that line runs too thin, sim racing is where the world's next IRL racing drivers will come from.
Jimmy Broadbent put out a video recently rating Joe Rogan's sim racing rig. Price? $70k lol.
I know what you mean though. For the price of a decent PC, wheel and pedals anyone can get a start in sim racing; you don't need one of those floating chair things on hydraulics with triple 4K screens.
@@deanchur The only thing that makes it expensive is the motion rigs, all of the other hardware in that rig is less than £10k so I guess thats a little more achievable
If they are fast enough yes, but they should compete in F3 and F2 to prove themselfes
Some have. More need to.
@@KymIllmanHave proven themselves ?
It’s all down to funding
@@KymIllman not one female in the last 30 years have proven nearly good enough to be in F1. Yes, representation is low and that needs to be sorted - as well as the power steering issue in lower categories - but F1 should not be for window dressing, it should be merit-based.
That also means we need to sort out existing issues with regards to current male drivers not being there on merit but rather daddy money/being from certain nationalities, but that keeps being swept under the carpet as well by the bodies in control.
As it has been for Stroll? Just to name the last... but in the 30+ years I watched F1 there's been a big number of male drivers who were supported more by sponsors than by ability. Other then that I agree with you that there should be more women start going into karting and that from there on it should only be based on merit @@Ho3n3r
We have female fighter pilots now in the US. Depending on the aircraft, they are punishing their bodies with up to sustained 9G loads.
Jennifer Kennedy won the Irish Hillclimb championship in a single seater with slicks.
Can drive b
Pretty bad to have Lindsay Brewer in the thumbnail when she was almost 3-4 seconds slower per lap in NXT while Chadwick actually qualified 10th but got unlucky in T1
Agreed. She is purely a publicity stunt supported by claims of success that are actually untruths. She literally is damaging opportunities for capable women drivers.
Her insta handle is 🔥
So cool you got to meet her, Sophia is a badass. Hopefully she does well this year.
She’s a delight to talk to
@@KymIllmani have one Question!
Do you realy believe Sophia can make it to F2 or even F1?
I dont see it coming! It will not happen!
I like her a lot! I admire her!
But she is just NOT good enough!
Why nobody has the Balls and say her the Truth?
Say me? Do you realy believe she has it?
The first Weekend this Year was embarrassing! She was talking about points but she was dead last
@@goldenboy860 Even in F3 where everyone has the same basic car there's big differences between the teams, mainly due to Car Engineers who are better at tweaking mechanical things, Race Engineers with better Car Setup skills, better analysis of Car performance, etc. (Sophia would be a way better source on this than me though.) At the end of the day she beat all her male team-mates in 2023 and if the car setup proves decent can out-perform the car, which is all you can ask for. As to her team being one of the slow ones note in 2023 her team and one other were the only ones to get a single points finish out of all the races, the 3rd worst team got 14 point finishes. With 18 races and 3 cars per race that's 1 points finish in 54 team attempts, she scored it, she also got all 6 of the best finishes by the team in those 54 entries, no other driver finished above 17th (her best was 7th).
Oh and never analyse a driver on a single result, I see Lando got four 17th places in F1 in 2023, that doesn't mean he's one of the slowest drivers in F1.
A big problem is teams want drivers with attached money (as money may or may not make the World go round, but more of it certainly makes a Race Car go faster) and for some reason Women get less sponsorship than Men. (In F1 the top drivers come with loads of attached sponsorship money, hiring Lewis, Max, Charles, etc. brings in a ton of cash, way more than any driver who is suggested to be paying for a seat, not that anyone really is.) All this makes it harder for Women to get into a leading team. Even in F1, where there are no slow drivers, a slow car means being down the field.
Really all Sophia can do IMHO is hope she gets a better F3 Car over time, but then there's the money issue, you need to be a lot faster than anyone to get into a better team without it, which is unlikely in the lower formulas. BTW it's said in F1 that all the drivers are within a second of each other, and the rest of the gaps are down to the Cars.
@@JonInLondon I know that in F3 and F2 the Teams are making the difference with engineering and Setup!
I have a good understanding of Motorsport 😉
But we hear the Same Bullshit from her Year after Year after Year!
Last Year she was realy good in my Opinion! Like you said, she did get out the maximum of her package!
But it seems she stuck again!
There is no Progress at all! She should at least drive where Noel is!
But she is again 25th - 30th like last Year with a much better Team! Maybe its not the best Team but it is better!
The Point is! It is simpley not enough! There are Drivers like Arvid Lindblad who gets in a F3 Car and is bloody Fast straight from the beginning!
Sophia is in her 3rd Year in F3! She will not get a 4th! Not with her Result's
And if she dont Fights for Points a couple of Races this Year she will be out of the Alpine Programm for Sure!
Thats the hard truth!
@@goldenboy860Es ist doch jedes Jahr das Gleiche. Ihre Leistungen werden immer relativiert und schöngeredet. Langsam kann man es echt nicht mehr ernst nehmen.
Sie fährt seit Jahren konstant auf den hinteren Plätzen rum, aber an ihr liegt es natürlich nie immer ist etwas oder jemand anderes schuld daran. Sie fuhr auch schon für bessere Teams als PHM, aber hat dort auch nicht mehr gezeigt. Außerdem kannst du auch in einem schwächeren Team gut performen wenn du das Talent mitbringst. Logan Sargeant fuhr damals im Charouz (dem schwächsten Team) auf Platz 7. in der Gesamtwertung und gewann zwei Rennen.
Auch das letzte Jahr sollt man mal in Relation setzten, sie hatte nur einen durchgängigen Teamkollegen mit Faria, der komplett überfordert in der F3 war und ein ähnlicher Maßstab war wie Deledda vor ein paar Jahren. Sie hat einen guten Job gemacht mit dem Punkten in Spa, das will ich nicht bestreiten, aber wenn du ernsthaft weiterkommen willst dann reicht es halt nicht einmal mit Glück in die Punkte zu kommen.
Kein männlicher Fahrer wäre nach so wenig Ergebnissen in so vielen Jahren (zur Erinnerung, sie fährt seit 2018 in der F3 wenn man die Vorgängerserie noch mitzählt) noch weiterhin Chancen bekommen oder gar in eine Driver Academy aufgenommen werden. Aber klar sie wird ja von allen Seiten immer nur benachteiligt.
Ich will auch gar nicht behaupten, sie wäre eine schlechte Fahrerin, aber Anspruch und Wirklichkeit liegen bei ihr halt extrem weit auseinander. Wenn sie dieses Jahr nicht halbwegs performt sollte es das gewesen sein mit Formelsport.
F2 may not have power steering, but that's not the problem. F1 races are almost twice as long. F2 may be bit harder on the arms, but the problem all drivers face, is higher G-forces for a much extended time. Olly Bearman's head surround was crushed on his Ferrari this week because he couldn't keep his head up for the duration of the race. At almost 10 seconds a lap faster for double the time, is a big hurdle even for men, who have an obvious advantage.
A woman has already competed in Formula One, Lella Lombardi back in the 1970s. She even scored half a point during the 1975 season!
Though, it would be cool to see another woman compete in F1 again 👍
A South African woman by the name of Desire Wilson also competed in the 60's & 70's. She is to date the only woman to win an F1 race, although it was not a championship race. I have personally witnessed both of these women racing at Kyalami in the South African GP during that time.
I just want to see the fastest drivers in the fastest cars.
As do most people not born in the age of woke brainwashing,
k
Then you must have a huge problem with lance stroll
@@elena0351 Ha HA HA yes maybe, but what I mean is, I don't care if it is a she ore a he ore a whatever, driving the race car, as long as it is not a person ending up in the car because of his/her/it's gender.
I was interested in DC’s story about his sister. The late Dale Earnhardt had 3 kids who raced in late model stocks (would be like an early single seater on the F1 ladder) in the early-mid 1990s, two sons and a daughter. Everyone who raced against them felt his daughter was the best racer. However, it was her younger brother, Dale Jr, who went on to become a top racer. Nowadays, Kelley is an extremely talented and influential businesswoman in the NASCAR world, co-owns a race team, and is her brother’s manager. But she is the first to admit that if she were born 20 years later, her life path might have been different
I look forward to the day a woman earns her spot into F1. "More girls in carting will lead to more opportunities to get into F1." Excellent video, Kym!
It would be interesting to add a short review of the past F1 female drivers. Were they a novelty or a publicity stunt, or did they earn their way to the job? Were the money and the cars so different back then that it's not comparable to today?
There have NOT been any, he literally says "I hope to photograph the first female f1 driver" and Susie Wolfe says "we hope to get a female driver by 2030"
@@Nathan-qc4gz There was a women in F1 once, back in the 70s if I remember correctly.
There is another comment here listing all the female drivers who raced or attempted to race an F1 car. There is no doubt that in the past, there was outright discrimination against women ( I read Desire Wilson's biography written by her husband and it was appalling) but I don't think that is the case today in getting opportunities. They do though face a problem on track in karting and lower categories from male drivers who want to wreck them intentionally.
@@Nathan-qc4gz 5 have entered, 2 qualified and Lella Lombardi scored half a point (the race was shortened so half points were used)
I really do not care if it is a male or female. Put the fastest driver in the best car. end of the story.
As some one who’s races on the weekends in my Miata.. when I look over at the other driver I don’t care at all whos next to me. If you got race pace we racing
Thank you, Kym! I discovered you in pre-season this year and now you're becoming one of my favorite F1 channels this season! Love what you do, keep it up.
Welcome aboard!
Truth is most men are not capable of being competitive in F1, so given the strength requirements and depth perception needed, it is safe to say that even fewer women are capable of becoming competitive F1 drivers. Will there be female F1 drivers in the future? Sure, but they will likely be there to satisfy the politically correct environment, and not because they are the best drivers.
Kill another sport shame
spot on sally
Great video Kym! Looking forward to seeing more female drivers in F1 over the coming years.
Honestly with a potential lighter body weight and smaller build I'm surprised there are not more of them in this time when space and kg are key. Saving 10kg on a driver and possibly 3/4 inches of height giving them more room to sit lower etc, from an engineer point of view it would be a dream. Think of at horse jockeys are all midgits basically.
Why do they have a separate category where the cars are not close to formula 1? Why not have a championship where they use year or two year old F1 cars
@4:00 a couple of million for a few seasons karting?!! Wow!
Yeah. Look up Enzo Mucci on UA-cam. He had a video a few months ago laying out the total costs to even get a sniff at F1. It was something like $10 million in total. And as someone said in the video, there hundreds, if not thousands, of drivers who spent that and never got a shot at an F1 seat.
You can't imagine how happy this video made me. I'm a huge fan of yours and F1 from Colombia and seeing Tatiana on the video made me love you even more! Thank you for such an excellent content.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Lindsay Brewer😂 She was slow in Indy Pro 2000 and she was dead slow at St Pete's last weekend in Indy NXT. Everyone knows how she got her drive and it didn't have anything to do with talent.
Hello Kym, a very insightful video, thanks for sharing.
They can compete for a seat just like the men. If they’re are fast enough (or rich enough to buy a seat), go for it.
Kym… you should look up Demi Chalkias - who is a super talented Canadian racing driver. You should interview her when you come for the Canadian Grand Prix!
I'll check it out!
A driver's career starts really young, and when you are between the age of 5 -8, most young girls simply don't have an interest for such sports. There are of course exceptions and girls raised in families that enjoy motorsports. I feel like it's a fact that is often overlooked when people bring up stats. That's okay if there is less than 10% of women in the sport and there is no need to try to force this ratio. I think the real problem is, when women do make it, it's important to provide equal opportunities.
Imagine if Lella Lombardi was still alive today. She would help women in racing so much.
Full marks to the women cause. Admittedly when I was sailing competitively 40 years ago I was sceptical about women in the sport, but I was never against them competing. It's attitudes that still need to change. I love the way that in all sports things are changing rapidly.
If a woman was fast enough she’d be there already. People/teams want to win. Women shouldn’t be in F1 just for the sake of it.
and if there was a woman fast enough, teams would be going crazy to try and sign her. the amount of positive PR that team would have would be insane
Not true actually pace is only one part of it. Sponsors are a major part in it look a stroll his time got beat by jess hawkins
It's a privileged gender . They will be getting seats . They brought power steering in f2 just for women , so that it's easy for them .
They need power steering in F2.
@@jakobmarra765Stroll is more than a sponsor, he _owns_ the team
Your content is head and shoulders more interesting than any other F1 content out there. Stay passionate and keep it coming!
I’m glad you enjoy it. Thanks
A woman has already competed in Formula One: Lella Lombardi back in the 1970s. She even scored half a point in 1975!
But I think any fan would agree that it would be cool to see another woman race in F1 again 👍
Why?
If a woman can fly a fighter jet, then they can drive an F1 car.
Sophia makes an excellent point about the sponsorship side of things, although male or female even that can be a classic case of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'.
If you look at rallying, there's a lot of female competitors (co-drivers mainly). It seems to be due to the differences in thinking. We have a great community of women competing in the New Zealand Rally Championship so it seems like such a normal part of the sport.
I see no one has heard of Nancy Stroll who is replacing her brother next year.
I love Sophia , she seems very genuine .
I'm with you
You're very good with your non biased reporting. Thank you!!!!!!
I appreciate that
Talent will always rise to the top, the problem is there are so few women and so many men
The problem with saying it's purely a numbers game is that if 90% of racing drivers are male, then there should be 2 women already driving in F1.
It will happen eventually. Like Kym, I just hope I'm still alive to see it.
I seem to recall that 1 or 2 women raced in F1 in the 1950’s admittedly not very successful. Today women fly F16’s. So I think the right kinda woman could race in F1 today with reasonable success.
They can try... I see no reason why not.. Tbh, I'd enjoy seeing Logan, Lance, Yuki, Zhou, Daniel and Esteban get passed by a girl... 😅
I don't see why a woman couldn't drive in F1, and I hope it will happen in the next few years!
So, the only thing.... yes for F1 as it's assisted, but no for m v f in F2.... then there's dilemma, is F2 then softened to be inclusive leading of positive discimination
I think Formula E should be considered a feeder series rather than a retirement pathway for drivers.. Love to see women in Formula E
Until a woman can win a major international single seater or sportscar championship, against the top male drivers in either category, it isn't realistic to expect them to reach Formula 1, apart from as a marketing or publicity exercise. In recent times, possibly only Danica Patrick, Katherine Legge and Simona de Silvestro have demonstrated sufficient ability to race at the top level on a regular basis, but F1 is another step up from anything else. Right now, perhaps Doriane Pin and Lilou Wadoux might have the talent to get there, but it could be a few more years before they've got the experience and skills required to earn a chance on merit alone. I hope a woman can make it to F1 eventually, but it will be incredibly difficult for anyone who can finally make the jump, Winning outright at Le Mans, or becoming F2 champion, however, would bring that possibility much closer, which is definitely a realistic ambition for any female racer.
Glad to see a video featuring folks actually working within the Formula racing space weigh in over this for a change.
One of the problems is that women are going through the same routes as men, karting as pre-teens and tweens, Formula Ford and such. I would like to see what happens if women switch sports and come to motorsports later. Recruit women from downhill skiing and mountain bike racing (requires strength, they understand racing lines and high speed crashes) or from gymnastics (small, physically strong, able to make fine adjustments at high speed) when they are 16-17 and put them into karting. Shorten the time in each level and bring women in around 25, not 20 as with men. They may not last as long, but they'll be much stronger and have the same physical skills.
Olympic ski jumping has proven that women of the same height and build as men can produce the same results (jumping the same distances on the hills).
Susie Wolff did about 10 years ago.
Women can fly fighter jets, so definitely F1 is possible
Completely different. Fighter jets is about staying awake and blood flowing into legs. F1 is about neck and general strength.
Finding reasons why it hasn’t happened is easy. Finding a way to make it happen is allot harder.
Try to get a percentage of the males that start racing that eventually make it to F1. Multiply that percentage with the amount of females that start racing and the outcome will be smaller than 1.
Simple statistics, that doesn’t make it impossible. Just really hard.
Based on what we saw in Jeddah from the F1 Academy, I think we are far from it. It was Total Carnage, and most of those girls are just a safety hazard on track.
Exactly!
Michelle Mouton is proof that a woman can definitely be as good or better then men at driving. I really hope we see a talented woman get into F1 on skill and not money
Susie Wolff has her sights set on it.
Danica Patrick drove indycar- no powersteering. The problem is, no other females will ever match her level. If they want to compete against men, they need to drop the female F1 academy gimmick etc. and actually race against tough competition.
There’s lots of female drivers that are better than Danica Patrick. She comes from money and marketing with hundreds of millions shelled out by her sponsors. Like many female sports, the ones with the most sponsorship aren’t necessarily the best, but have the most marketing potential. Notice how most of the girls driving in the feeder series are attractive? That not a coincidence and says more about humanity and how the world actually works than raw talent alone.
@@sunsetgarage755 LOL who is better than Danica??? List them.
Almost every driver came from money, gotta have money to start karting, travel etc. She took advantage of getting sponsors for being good. You don’t place qualify 5th in Indy500 with money alone. lmao more females should follow her route. She did all the hard work, and now everyone knows her and her brand. I can’t think of any other female drivers that are more recognizable than her. I’m no Danica fan, but I can tell you-she created her brand by herself.
Now you got F1 forcing sponsors/racing like it’s a handout instead of getting it on merit, these women aren’t going to thrive in motorsports by competition against each other.
And Danika was rubbish, had like 5 reasonable placed finishes in her career. Now she's chasing UFOs with Josh Gates.
@@herewegoagain7403 If you can’t think of a better female driver than Danica Patrick in the entire history of female Motorsport, then that says more about your ignorance than Danica’s talent, or lack thereof. If Danica had even half the talent of Michelle Mouton, she may have even managed to finish one NASCAR race in the top ten instead of crashing out, taking other drivers with her & then blaming anyone but herself, or just finishing towards the back, and very seldom on the lead lap even with multiple safety car restarts to bunch up the field. She was a joke.
@@sunsetgarage755 Michelle Mouton? Doesn’t ring a bell bc she’s irrelevant. However I can think of plenty. Jamie Chadwick, the iron lynx trio line up, Sarah fisher, Susie wolff just to name a few. But nobody can match up to what Patrick has done and her brand.
Like what Max Verstappen said, females are welcomed, but should not be in a slow ass car. They need to be doing what Patrick did and race with the top drivers.
I don't think a woman will ever be able to compete in F1 until they have power brakes. It takes well in excess of 100 kgs of force to brake, and I've seen numbers in the 150s.
Should be noted that while there's never been a top level female Indycar driver there have been a few midfield/back marker drivers so they are physically capable. Danica Patrick was probably the best of the group and remember she was 5 feet tall (152 cm) and not much above 100 lbs (45 kg) so not a massive woman by any stretch. Remember, Indycar does not have power steering.
Thank you for this content!
Doriane Pin is ready and talented enough 💪🏼💥🏁🏆
Thats not the question,the question should be can they can the car competitive and safe not just there safety it's the other drivers plus everyone watching in the stands. My answer would be NO. They do not have the muscle build up in there body to be safe.
As ofhers have said, it's a number's game. The issue is with the number of girls who start off karting in the first place.
i don't want to be mean. just pursue your dreams, no matter how hard the mountain looks to climb ❤
they should make a male/female league for each team
Who will watch the female League? Other women?
Wow... the video as well as most of the comments are reasonable. Kym must have a good audience. Maybe someday with rising popularity of F1 with woman. It would be exciting.
It's not a gender debate or political correctness. In racing what really matters is the timesheet. If you were a team manager, you would only want to hire someone with the potential to win something, right? And that's before the other considerations like physicals, sponsorship money, etc. (as clearly explained in the video).
I remember when Susie Woolf didn't make a Williams F1 drive, she went on live breakfast TV and said the reason was because she's a woman (never mind how she got the test driver seat in the first place if it wasn't for a Woolf connection). Of course I don't get to see her Williams timesheets, but I did when she participated in Race Of Champions! As you know, in ROC you have to drive different categories of identical cars, and her times were "seriously" slower than e.g. David Coulthard, her UK team mate.
So, yes I think women can make it in F1, but they have to cut it like everyone else.
By the advances shown by Redbull there is nooooo reason in the world a woman could not turn laps as fast as the field in the #1 Redbull car. Tech has bypassed physical ability.
According to Jos Verstappen Max sister Victoria Verstappen had the same talent but she was not that interesting after the go-kart.
I hate to say but the g forces are to big. I am a female. And I drove motocross KTM 150.
Yes. An honest assessment.
Neck strength. Bearman's head was flopping all over the place. A woman is going to come in with a head that weights 90% as much and helmet that weights the same and gut it out with far less muscle mass and narrower spine/shoulder geometry? How?
It’s a bit like in a speech of Adam Rutherford (geneticist and podcaster) about racism. He picked the Lack of black worldclass swimmers and talks about what science cooked up in terms of theories over the time and really the main factor is that at least in the US black kid just don’t learn swimming, so they are never seen or spottete by a talent scout…
Short answer… not at the top level
Her crash still terrifies me
I agree it was crazy and she was very lucky to survive in that I think there were enough solid objects around that she could have hit.
at 8:25 I believe this is the blonde lady that Kym was interviewing. That accident could have been very bad. Never seen one quite like that.
When they first showed the clip of the accident it was hard to spot what happened as it was so fast. Sofia was very lucky as I'm sure there were enough solid objects to make it disasterous.
came to see if anyone actually mentions breaking, as much as steering is not a big deal, pushing F1 breaks is, from previous video i saw it requires 150kg of force..
Lindsay is also a model so you can't compare her social media to the other women. She is like the Livvy Dunne of motorsports. Women can certainly make it, but there are only 22 drivers.
Why didn't you mention F1 Academy, i thought the whole point of that was to bring women into driving f1? I also thought those drivers were somewhere alongside f3 or f2 drivers, guess not, where did they get the f1 academy drivers from?
This was recorded last year.
Yes they can. But how competitive can they be?
Knock knock
Who’s there?
F1 Academy winner
F1 Academy winner, who?
Exactly.
Got to drive in GP2 first and has to be on merit, I’m sure they can sometime.
Wow, good video, crazy to see so many comments where things you say just go right over people's heads
They should mandate every f1 team to have one funded female junior driver in f4,f3
Women have raced in F1 and the last woman to score an F1 point was 1975.
There will be a female F1 driver in the future, but not on merit. In F1 the competition is just too damn high.
The first woman? Two women, Maria Teresa de Filippis and Lella Lombardi, have started in an F1 race, and one of them scored points.
I hope kevin encourages his daughters to get into racing
Honestly, we all know why Lindsay Brewer has more followers than many of the guys, right?
Same reason there are more female 'influencers' than male. Same reason there are more females on Only Fans than males and why they make more money than males. Anyone remember Anna Kornakova?
Auto racing, and specifically F1, is one of the few sports women can compete equally with men.
What will it take? Just to have more women start getting into the sport at a young age, and that takes time. Same can be said for female lawyers and doctors and ____________ . Once there are more females in the pool, they will eventually level the ratio of male to female participants.
Anna Kournikova grossed more money than any other female tennis player, yet her ranking between 10 and 15 (her career high singles ranking was No. 8).
I once heard the single seaters are less safe for women in case of a crash. Can someone who knows something tell me whether there's any truth to this?
Anyone who has seen Sophia Floersch Macau crash can't question their commitment.....
Let’s no talk about F1, she is in F3 now, let her perform to her best. If she can beat the guys in F3, she can progress to F2.
From what I've experienced in sport it's going to take an exceptional talented female to rise to the challenges... facts are this men are stronger mentally, physically have faster reactions and can sustain stresses for longer periods... these are just facts in especially sport.. hence why at lower categories women can and have been very competitive, look at Michele Muton, runner up In WRC championship in 1982.. HOWEVER I am going to say I can't see anyone in current generations who have that raw tuffness grit and determination to make it.. today seems softer somewhat entitled and expected to be helped to make it there.. thats my observation. I would truly love to see a female like any driver make it on pure merit and succeed.