Hoffman900 wrote: ↑28 Dec 2024, 04:26
bluechris wrote: ↑27 Dec 2024, 05:43
This is the problem for me. Power steering is one factor but how many of you want to see a woman driving an F1 car in high level with a neck like HULK as all the drivers have?
Women compete in MMA, boxing, and Roman Greco wrestling, where neck strength is as or more important than F1 drivers. This is a non issue. Everything F1 drivers do, people in those sports have been doing forever… the movements and training routines all came from there.
Leg strength is also a non-issue. Spend any amount of time around collegiate women rugby players, field hockey players, rowers, and competitive Olympic weight lifters and it’s a non issue. Hell my gym has several 30 something moms who compete in powerlifting and oly lifting competitions as hobbyists and can back squat north of 115kg, some of them run pretty decent 5k times on top of that too.
F1 drivers have fantastic endurance and quick reflexes, but this elite physical thing is a bit hype and self aggrandizing. For example, I have had friends who have raced against Bottas on bicycles as hobbyists. And while Bottas is extremely fit and fast on a bike, my friends who are serious amatuer cyclists still beat him. That’s not to say they can drive a F1 car because they can’t. Having seen Bottas in person, I would have no problem beating him in a weight room and an arm wrestling competition, and I am hardly elite. It’s just different.
Furthermore, every F1 driver who steps into Indy Car has to bulk up with muscle to handle the lack of power steering and the longer races, and women have competed there.
The thing with F1 is it takes a lot of money. I see $30mil investment floating around a kart > F2 career, and the reality is half the F1 grid brings in their own sponsors on top of that. So for F1 it’s not a problem of women can’t do it, it’s a matter of numbers. You need enough women with $30mil behind them, that one breaks through the other guys with that behind them.
Remember, a lot of the drivers come from wealthy families (Stroll, Norris), or they get support from manufacturers (Lewis, Oscar, Charles), or wealthy sugar daddies (Perez), or psuedo government backing (Albon), or whatever academy system they’re in (RB). None of these guys are solely there on their “elite athleticism”. There is some natural innate talent as wheelman and reflexes, but the rest of it is how much money they’ve had invested in them via track time, equipment, coaching, etc.