W Series

[Just_a_fan]

(...)
The big issue with W series is that it was just women racing each other. Not helpful in promoting female drivers in to the upper echelons of the male-dominated senior formulae.

Why do most people assume that the goal is to promote female drivers in the male-dominated senior formulae? Is it even possible? Physical strength and endurance are quite essential in racing. Nobody suggests female athletes should compete with male in 100 m sprint for example. Which only makes me have all the more respect for drivers like Michèle Mouton or Danica Patrick who have achieved success in their respective racing categories.

There are sports where women and men compete against each other directly - equestrianism, for example. That is very similar to motor racing in that the work of moving around is done not by the rider/driver but by the horse/car. And, yes, equestrianism is physical, to which anyone who has ridden a horse can attest.

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.

The issue, as with many male drivers, is that getting sufficient sponsorship to get through the junior formulae and then get a chance of a drive in an F1 car, is very, very difficult. And there are lots of men and very few women in motorsport, which makes the chances of a woman managing it even harder.

And then there is the central issue with sport in general - traditionally, it's mostly men that watch it. And for some reason, men don't want to watch women's sport. I would guess because seeing women being better at it than they are themselves is bad for their ego. I don't like football (soccer for our US friends) but did enjoy watching some of the women's Euro competition earlier this year. I also enjoyed watching the women's cricket this summer. But then I don't have an ego in either of those areas - I dislike football and know my cricketing skills are very limited having tried playing a bit a few years ago. I'm happy to watched skilful players of either gender play cricket.

[Zynerji]

(...)
The big issue with W series is that it was just women racing each other. Not helpful in promoting female drivers in to the upper echelons of the male-dominated senior formulae.

Why do most people assume that the goal is to promote female drivers in the male-dominated senior formulae? Is it even possible? Physical strength and endurance are quite essential in racing. Nobody suggests female athletes should compete with male in 100 m sprint for example. Which only makes me have all the more respect for drivers like Michèle Mouton or Danica Patrick who have achieved success in their respective racing categories.

There are sports where women and men compete against each other directly - equestrianism, for example. That is very similar to motor racing in that the work of moving around is done not by the rider/driver but by the horse/car. And, yes, equestrianism is physical, to which anyone who has ridden a horse can attest.

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.

The issue, as with many male drivers, is that getting sufficient sponsorship to get through the junior formulae and then get a chance of a drive in an F1 car, is very, very difficult. And there are lots of men and very few women in motorsport, which makes the chances of a woman managing it even harder.

And then there is the central issue with sport in general - traditionally, it's mostly men that watch it. And for some reason, men don't want to watch women's sport. I would guess because seeing women being better at it than they are themselves is bad for their ego. I don't like football (soccer for our US friends) but did enjoy watching some of the women's Euro competition earlier this year. I also enjoyed watching the women's cricket this summer. But then I don't have an ego in either of those areas - I dislike football and know my cricketing skills are very limited having tried playing a bit a few years ago. I'm happy to watched skilful players of either gender play cricket.

Are we overlooking the obvious honed, instinctual skill differences between hunters/warriors and gatherer/caretakers?

There is a reason for the chemical balance being different. It's hard to be empathetic when jacked up on testosterone, and just as hard to channel high-risk aggression when the estrogen regime is in charge.

If the girls are just as good, let the W run year-old F1 cars. Does no one see the condescension of the "racing school" level cars they were put in?

[piast9]

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.
(...)

Driving a F1 car is not only turning the steering wheel. You have to stamp on the brakes and keep your head straight. Drivers are really tired after the race. Nyck de Vries had to be helped to get out of the car after Monza. Just from the strength point of view I think it is unfair for women drivers to be judged as "not skilled enough" just because they do not do F1 or F2 racing.

As for the popularity of racing amongst women - it just needs time I think. Sports in which women compete for a long time are popular. From the perspective of my region i consider athletics, volleyball, tennis, handball, football, skiing, skating as quite popular sports present in in the sport TV channels.

[Just_a_fan]

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.
(...)

Driving a F1 car is not only turning the steering wheel. You have to stamp on the brakes and keep your head straight. Drivers are really tired after the race. Nyck de Vries had to be helped to get out of the car after Monza. Just from the strength point of view I think it is unfair for women drivers to be judged as "not skilled enough" just because they do not do F1 or F2 racing.

As for the popularity of racing amongst women - it just needs time I think. Sports in which women compete for a long time are popular. From the perspective of my region i consider athletics, volleyball, tennis, handball, football, skiing, skating as quite popular sports present in in the sport TV channels.

I think the physical side of things can be dealt with by appropriate training. Women can be strong and have endurance - there are plenty of women competing at the highest level in strength and endurance sports. de Vries' problem was, as he said, a lack of race fitness. Any driver will struggle with that be they male or female.

As for women's sport generally, in the UK we had a period of time where women were effectively banned from playing football at a high level - the FA just would not allow it to be played in FA-affiliated grounds. Which meant it was effectively banned from 1921 until the 1970s. So women's football is 50 years behind the men's game in the UK.

Interestingly, in 1920, a women's game had an attendance of over 50,000 with many more turned away at the gates. The male establishment didn't like that and so worked to ban women from playing.

The England women's team winning the recent UEFA championship has done the women's game no end of good in the UK. Especially as the men's team failed to win it.

[V12-POWER]

(...)
The big issue with W series is that it was just women racing each other. Not helpful in promoting female drivers in to the upper echelons of the male-dominated senior formulae.

Why do most people assume that the goal is to promote female drivers in the male-dominated senior formulae? Is it even possible? Physical strength and endurance are quite essential in racing. Nobody suggests female athletes should compete with male in 100 m sprint for example. Which only makes me have all the more respect for drivers like Michèle Mouton or Danica Patrick who have achieved success in their respective racing categories.

There are sports where women and men compete against each other directly - equestrianism, for example. That is very similar to motor racing in that the work of moving around is done not by the rider/driver but by the horse/car. And, yes, equestrianism is physical, to which anyone who has ridden a horse can attest.

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.

The issue, as with many male drivers, is that getting sufficient sponsorship to get through the junior formulae and then get a chance of a drive in an F1 car, is very, very difficult. And there are lots of men and very few women in motorsport, which makes the chances of a woman managing it even harder.

And then there is the central issue with sport in general - traditionally, it's mostly men that watch it. And for some reason, men don't want to watch women's sport. I would guess because seeing women being better at it than they are themselves is bad for their ego. I don't like football (soccer for our US friends) but did enjoy watching some of the women's Euro competition earlier this year. I also enjoyed watching the women's cricket this summer. But then I don't have an ego in either of those areas - I dislike football and know my cricketing skills are very limited having tried playing a bit a few years ago. I'm happy to watched skilful players of either gender play cricket.

Exactly, women are as fast as men. That’s why Tatiana Calderon was like 9 seconds off the pace in an F1 car, was an F2 backmarker and so on

The W series is a good concept. Give them a chance to shine

[Tommy Cookers]

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.
(...)

Driving a F1 car is not only turning the steering wheel. You have to stamp on the brakes and keep your head straight. Drivers are really tired after the race. Nyck de Vries had to be helped to get out of the car after Monza. Just from the strength point of view I think it is unfair for women drivers to be judged as "not skilled enough" just because they do not do F1 or F2 racing.

afaik women are less tolerant of fighter-plane type g ... and ....
with aircraft there was design practice - effectively the very tall can't be fighter pilots
and opposite limitations have affected the small
but now aircraft (and ejector seat) design is forced to accept a set of smaller pilots ie women
this has costs

1960s F1 used special long-wheelbase chassis for people like Gurney and Parkes
but performance presumably suffered eg in 61-65 1.5 litre F1
now the rules cancel any benefits from small stature eg Desiree Wilson, Richie Ginther, Bill Ivy
(Bill got pole and finished 4th against world champions in his first car race)

[hollus]

Playing devil’s advocate here.
For the current generation of 20-somethings, which was the starting pool of boys and girls that were interested enough in karting when they were 10 years old and that had a chance of getting family support for competition through their teen years? My guess is ~ 100000 boys and about 1000 girls?

[Just_a_fan]

Exactly, women are as fast as men. That’s why Tatiana Calderon was like 9 seconds off the pace in an F1 car, was an F2 backmarker and so on

The W series is a good concept. Give them a chance to shine

Plenty of men would be 9 seconds or more off the pace too. Taking an individual and then judging half of the human race based on that one individual is a touch narrow-minded. The equivalent of saying you're a mass murderer because Stalin was.

[Just_a_fan]

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.
(...)

Driving a F1 car is not only turning the steering wheel. You have to stamp on the brakes and keep your head straight. Drivers are really tired after the race. Nyck de Vries had to be helped to get out of the car after Monza. Just from the strength point of view I think it is unfair for women drivers to be judged as "not skilled enough" just because they do not do F1 or F2 racing.

afaik women are less tolerant of fighter-plane type g ... and ....
with aircraft there was design practice - effectively the very tall can't be fighter pilots
and opposite limitations have affected the small
but now aircraft (and ejector seat) design is forced to accept a set of smaller pilots ie women
this has costs

Real studies say otherwise. Women have as good tolerance to aircraft g loadings as men and in some cases higher.

As to the seats, there have always been size limits as you say. Not all small pilots are women just as not all women pilots are small. Bell curves apply to the sizes of the two genders and there is significant overlap between the curves for men and women, albeit of course the female bell curve is centred at a shorter height than the male one.

Here's an example, in Pakistan, of a female pilot with male colleagues. She's taller than some of them. (Actually, the important bit about this photo is a woman being allowed to do stuff in a fairly strict Muslim country. Who knew?)



It's worth noting than being shorter can help with g tolerance too - less distance for the heart to pump blood up against the g load.

[Just_a_fan]

Playing devil’s advocate here.
For the current generation of 20-somethings, which was the starting pool of boys and girls that were interested enough in karting when they were 10 years old and that had a chance of getting family support for competition through their teen years? My guess is ~ 100000 boys and about 1000 girls?

I hinted at that earlier. The pool of women in motorsport is vastly smaller than that for men. So the chances of a stand out driver, a female Max if you like, is necessarily much less.

[MattWellsyWells]

W Series had many flaws but the purpose of it wasn't to push any of the current drivers into F1, it was to give women race drivers some publicity and hopefully start to put an end to a lot of the problems that have been discussed.

Personally, I think it has achieved some of those goals - I wouldn't have heard of half the drivers if it wasn't for W Series. Hopefully there are some young girls who have been inspired by seeing a bunch of women racing cars on their TVs that'll be inspired to get involved in motorsport.

I hope it will be back next year and maybe in the future it won't be necessary.

[johnny comelately]

Women could drive an F1 car because the power steering takes care of that part of the strength side of things. Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft, so the loadings shouldn't be an issue either. Getting fit and strong enough to drive an F1 car is not the issue.
(...)

Driving a F1 car is not only turning the steering wheel. You have to stamp on the brakes and keep your head straight. Drivers are really tired after the race. Nyck de Vries had to be helped to get out of the car after Monza. Just from the strength point of view I think it is unfair for women drivers to be judged as "not skilled enough" just because they do not do F1 or F2 racing.

afaik women are less tolerant of fighter-plane type g ... and ....
with aircraft there was design practice - effectively the very tall can't be fighter pilots
and opposite limitations have affected the small
but now aircraft (and ejector seat) design is forced to accept a set of smaller pilots ie women
this has costs

1960s F1 used special long-wheelbase chassis for people like Gurney and Parkes
but performance presumably suffered eg in 61-65 1.5 litre F1
now the rules cancel any benefits from small stature eg Desiree Wilson, Richie Ginther, Bill Ivy
(Bill got pole and finished 4th against world champions in his first car race)

Did not know that about Bill Ivy, thanks Tommy

[UlleGulle]

The issue, as with many male drivers, is that getting sufficient sponsorship to get through the junior formulae and then get a chance of a drive in an F1 car, is very, very difficult. And there are lots of men and very few women in motorsport, which makes the chances of a woman managing it even harder.

And then there is the central issue with sport in general - traditionally, it's mostly men that watch it. And for some reason, men don't want to watch women's sport. I would guess because seeing women being better at it than they are themselves is bad for their ego. I don't like football (soccer for our US friends) but did enjoy watching some of the women's Euro competition earlier this year. I also enjoyed watching the women's cricket this summer. But then I don't have an ego in either of those areas - I dislike football and know my cricketing skills are very limited having tried playing a bit a few years ago. I'm happy to watched skilful players of either gender play cricket.

I've been working with marketing for the better part of 15 years, and I respectfully reject your premise. This isn't about misogyny or "the system" fighting women drivers. It's about numbers and probabilities.

Let's deal with the misogyny first. The big majority of fans doesn't mind female drivers. Look at the stardom of Danicia Patrick. After being promoting herself from karting, she won one race in her whole career. But that race happened to be a Indycar race, and we've mentioned her 182 times here at the forum. Tomas Scheckter, who won two races in his Indycar career, and was the son of a F1 world champion, just eight times.

"The system" of racing teams and sponsors is kind of tilted the same way. Look at Tatiana Calderon. She has won two open wheel races in her life, a Florida Winter Series race, and a MRF Challenge race. Not really the hardest fought championships in the world. Still, she is a regular backmarker in Indycar, and test driver for Alfa Romeo in F1. It's so obviosly a marketing ploy, it's a petty. It's a bandaid on a flesh wound.

The W series doesn't work because it's not different from the regular series, it's just worse. It's the same reason we didn't watch A1GP or Superleague Formula.

It's all about probability. If there is on average two slots on the F1 grid every year, one of a thousand karting drivers ends up in F1, and one out of a hundred karting drivers is female... then we will have to wait a long time for a female F1 driver. It's the latter part the FIA should adress really.

And regarding the physical requirements, a woman possesses two attributes a F1 engineer will find very attractive. First of all, she is on average 13 cm shorter. And she weights, on average, 15kg less. With the problems of overweight cars, that's good stuff.

[Tommy Cookers]

... Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft...

Ernsting's Aviation Medicine is a standard work on eg this - its chapter 9 apparently says nothing to support the above
(but be sure to check out the AGSM anti-g straining manoeuvre !)
also its chapter 11 on Anthropometry
also an interesting and informative source on crash safety etc

and leaflet 4-05 Annex B RAF Anthropometric Limits - dimensional .....
shows the widening of size limits in more recent aircraft eg particularly the Typhoon

[Just_a_fan]

... Women seem to have a higher tolerance of g-forces - at least in the way that it is applied in centrifuges / aircraft...

Ernsting's Aviation Medicine is a standard work on eg this - its chapter 9 apparently says nothing to support the above
(but be sure to check out the AGSM anti-g straining manoeuvre !)
also its chapter 11 on Anthropometry
also an interesting and informative source on crash safety etc

and leaflet 4-05 Annex B RAF Anthropometric Limits - dimensional .....
shows the widening of size limits in more recent aircraft eg particularly the Typhoon

I did read a couple of studies that the Yanks did comparing men and women for g tolerance. Done because, well, they wanted to know if women were capable of the physical aspect of fighter combat. The answer was: yes, they are.

Interestingly, they also looked in to whether the classic "time of the month" problem would be a problem. Again, apparently not. Only thing noted was a couple of cases of urinary incontinence when doing hard anti-g exercises - straining the lower abdomen and thighs to keep blood up in the torso.