Meet the girls pushing to become future F1 stars

This video can not be played
JavaScript must be enabled in your browser to play this video.
Since Lella Lombardi, a female driver, has been competing in almost 50 years, nothing has changed.
Can a woman succeed in the dominated male-dominated world as the sport celebrates its 75th anniversary this year?
More Than Equal, a group co-founded by former Formula One driver David Coulthard, believes it is possible to put six promising young racers through a driver development program designed to maximize their potential in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University.
Last month, the inaugural group of girls, aged 13 and 14, took part in physical testing and research into how the menstrual cycle can affect performance. More Than Equal hopes the program will help participants get ready for a successful motorsport career.
“At the moment we’re in a bit of laboratory phase”, Tom Stanton, More Than Equal’s interim chief executive and head of driver development, tells BBC Sport.
We’ve created a structure that we think is world-class and will aid us in learning about the needs and development of young female drivers.
The girls’ visits to the university’s Institute of Sport included neck strength training, cognitive assessments, neck strength training, and other important metric tests for those aiming to compete in Formula One.
Another priority for the program is to drive at high speeds with precision and skill.
Menstrual research might have the potential to “game-change.”
A study by More Than Equal found a lack of female-specific training was just one of the obstacles women face when trying to find a place in Formula 1.
Many sports are now taking action to try to highlight the difficulties that top athletes face, such as assessing the effects of menopause, pregnancy, and period control.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a BBC Sport survey last year claimed their performance had been impacted by their period, or that they had missed training or competition as a result of their period.
Kirsty Elliot-Sale, professor of female endocrinology and exercise physiology at the Institute of Sport, believes data-driven, science-backed research into menstrual cycles could be “game changing” for women’s sport.
“It’s really great to see some attention and spotlight because each sport is different”, says Elliot-Sale. “We don’t know a lot, but I guarantee we’re going to learn really quickly.
” If we’re thinking about female challenges and say, ovarian hormones and menstrual cycles, whilst all female athletes might have that in common, the environment that they are placed in, the training and fuelling demands, there will be nuances and differences. “
Elliot-Sale hopes the program will help girls gain knowledge about how to navigate each stage of their cycle.
” In a way that is levelling up because men don’t face some of these challenges, “she adds.
What obstacles do women face in the sport of racing?

The main obstacle for anyone trying to enter F1, be they a man or a woman, is money. In the paddock, wealth is loud, and it is one of the few sports where your financial ability and your talent are equally important, as Stanton points out.
The lack of opportunity means that the physiological demands of a modern F1 campaign on a woman’s body are still unknown because of the fact that women account for only about 10% of motorsport’s population and that many sponsors are unwilling to risk taking a chance on even the best female drivers.
While Coulthard believes there is no physical reason a woman cannot compete in F1, a VO2 Max test, for example, shows a male’s score is typically around 20% higher than a female’s with the same fitness level.
Stanton claims that the development plan should not make the two sexes comparable.
” When we do our talent identification, we look at how they stack against the current field, which is boys and girls. We then examine the female field to learn how it appears there, he continued.
Every so often, we try to flip the lens to see it from both sides.
When it comes to competing against boys in karting, Lana Flack, from Australia, and Skye Parker, from Trelogan, Wales, know first-hand how hostile events can be when the sexes are mixed and girls are winning.
While Skye, 14, who has also been chosen as a part of the FIA’s Girls on Track program, was told “this is why women shouldn’t race,” while being wrongly accused of taking another driver out, Lana, 13, found herself the victim of sabotage when she was on her way to championship glory.
They hope to be able to accomplish their goals with support by overcoming barriers like this.
Related topics
- Formula 1
Source: BBC
Leave a Reply