36 replies to this topic

[purplehaireddolphin]

If a team (Caterham for example) was likely to be at the back of the grid all season, instead of taking the standard pay driver, would it be better for them to take on 2 women drivers?

Look at the publicity it would bring, sponsors would be falling over themselves to get involved, and having 2 average female drivers instead of 2 average male drivers with a sack load of dollars isn't going to affect their grid position.

[joora]

If a team (Caterham for example) was likely to be at the back of the grid all season, instead of taking the standard pay driver, would it be better for them to take on 2 women drivers?

Look at the publicity it would bring, sponsors would be falling over themselves to get involved, and having 2 average female drivers instead of 2 average male drivers with a sack load of dollars isn't going to affect their grid position.

 

I think one female driver would be enough to attract the sponsors.

[DanardiF1]

I can already see the tagline at Caterham... CAT-fight...

[SonnyViceR]

Literally the first thing that came to my mind after reading the thread title

 

[Collective]

If a team (Caterham for example) was likely to be at the back of the grid all season, instead of taking the standard pay driver, would it be better for them to take on 2 women drivers?

Look at the publicity it would bring, sponsors would be falling over themselves to get involved, and having 2 average female drivers instead of 2 average male drivers with a sack load of dollars isn't going to affect their grid position.

Because even those 'pay drivers' are very likely a LOT quicker than any of the girls currently in the ladder. And in the end you still need to be somewhat competitive.

[Andrew Hope]

One female driver would get them 99% of the attention they want. Two female drivers for an F1 team when there hasn't been one in the last 20 years just looks like they're trying too hard.

 

Charles Pic and Ana Beatriz looks like a respectable line-up for a backmarker team. Going with Susie Wolff and Vanina Ickx doesn't.

[FerrariV12]

There's the 107% rule to consider plus there's one team that they haven't been cut adrift from. Renault engine problems notwithstanding you'd expect them to be nip-and-tuck with Marussia for that financially all-important 10th place, Marussia going with Bianchi rather than a pay-driver, albeit by accident after Razia defaulted, played a big part in them getting it last year (given that both Pic and van der Garde out-placed Chilton on countback)

Edited by FerrariV12, 07 February 2014 - 16:33.

[Ross Stonefeld]

One female driver would get them 99% of the attention they want. Two female drivers for an F1 team when there hasn't been one in the last 20 years just looks like they're trying too hard.

 

 

 

Exactly. Two females isn't twice the value. 

 

But right now there aren't any female drivers as good/experienced as the guys we don't rate in F1. Whatever driver you can think of as the worst example of ridebuying on the current grid, still has a much better CV than any female candidate you can put forward.

[Wander]

^This is pretty much it. Still need to wait to find a woman driver has been properly competitive in a direct feeder series like GP2 or FR 3.5 or even European Formula 3 or GP3. This has not yet happened, but give it 5-10 more years and maybe...

Edited by Wander, 07 February 2014 - 16:39.

[rhukkas]

Looking at it right now there are even less girls in the racing scene than there were a few years ago, certainly ones looking at F1.

[ezequiel]

Hard to tell who she could be. The best single seater female driver currently has to be Simona De Silvestro, but she has developed her career in the USA so I don´t know how she would adapt to European competition, specialy if you throw her straightforward to F1. Natacha Gachnang switched to sport cars too early to see if there was something real in her Spanish F3 performances and beyond her not bad at all but still not so impressive year in F2. Alice Powell could have some potential, and by potential I mean being able, at least, to fight in the midfield or upper midfield in a competitive series and not being just condemned to be a backmarker as it is so usual with women in single seater racing (Samin Gómez and Carmen Jordá spring to mind), though she wasn't very impressive in her recent FR 3.5 test.

[HaydenFan]

One female driver would get them 99% of the attention they want. Two female drivers for an F1 team when there hasn't been one in the last 20 years just looks like they're trying too hard.

 

Charles Pic and Ana Beatriz looks like a respectable line-up for a backmarker team. Going with Susie Wolff and Vanina Ickx doesn't.

 

Harsh man. 

 

They'd bring the attention, but would it all be good? I mean, if she falls on her face and runs the level of Chilton, as a stereotype, it will hurt all women drivers. At least with Danica, while not rated the highest, got the result every now and then. But the bonus with Danica was that she tied herself in with top IndyCar teams. Would a women, outside the "women in F1" aspect benefit from joining a Caterham or a Marussia? Running with those bottom teams hasn't benefited any male drivers as of yet, and unless Bianchi puts up a couple of points, I don't see him moving up the ladder. 

 

As a team, they'd benefit from having a women driver. But a women driver wouldn't really benefit her career by running with a bottom end team. 

[ensign14]

I think one female driver would be enough to attract the sponsors.

 

Didn't work for Brabham in 1992.  Didn't help that they chose Giovanna Amati, who probably could have set quicker times had she ran.

[Ross Stonefeld]

*shrug* Sarah Fisher didn't make much of a sponsor impact, Danica did.

[ensign14]

Danica is conventionally hotter than Fisher.  But Amati was conventionally hotter than both.  And didn't attract anything beyond Niki Lauda's personal investment.

[Collombin]

I vaguely remember that they made a big deal about the first time two women qualified for the Indy 500.

Until they crashed into each other.

[rmpugh]

Women, for pity's sake, DON'T DRIVE!!

 

http://www.snotr.com...en__Don_t_Drive

 

[Nonesuch]

I've said the same thing before. For a full season it might be a bit much, but for a one or two races to attract local sponsorship - why not? It'd be fun for all involved. Because let's be honest, there are teams on the grid that haven't the slightest chance of getting close to the podium, or even to the points. I suppose the disappointing truth is that there aren't any female drivers that both want to give such an arrangement a go (which I can sort of understand) and can match even the less than stellar guys like Van der Garde or Chilton.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Danica is conventionally hotter than Fisher.  But Amati was conventionally hotter than both.  And didn't attract anything beyond Niki Lauda's personal investment.

 

It was also 1992. Sponsorship was hardly sophisticated.

 

Though I don't think you could repeat Danica in Europe. I just don't think you could really pull off a pan-EU marketing program the way you can go coast to coast in America.

[JeePee]

Spoiler

 

Maybe put Sutil's girlfriend in the 2nd seat? I'll maybe even buy a t-shirt then.

[schumimercamg]

I've said the same thing before. For a full season it might be a bit much, but for a one or two races to attract local sponsorship - why not? It'd be fun for all involved. Because let's be honest, there are teams on the grid that haven't the slightest chance of getting close to the podium, or even to the points. I suppose the disappointing truth is that there aren't any female drivers that both want to give such an arrangement a go (which I can sort of understand) and can match even the less than stellar guys like Van der Garde or Chilton.

Yes.  Those guys get a hard time but they would utterly wipe the floor with any current female driver.

[Lee Nicolle]

IF there was some suitable women drivers who are as fast as the better pay drivers it would make sense. But is seems there is none ATM so the whole thing is not even worth talking about.

[Lemnpiper]

   I was wondering if Maria de Villota  would have been  a likely candidate  now   had she not had that accident .

[Lee Nicolle]

I was wondering if Maria de Villota  would have been  a likely candidate  now   had she not had that accident .

I think most would agree no. The accident was sad and stupid but she was not good enough. Though reputedly a lot better than most drivers in the lower categorys.

[ensign14]

Incidentally, in this year's Autocourse, Tony Dodgins wrote:

 

At Silverstone's young driver test, 30-year-old Susie Wolff produced perhaps the most impressive display yet seen from a woman in a Formula One car.

 

 

Now, I normally like reading his writing, but that has to be the most inexplicably ludicrous, insulting and pig-ignorant sentence ever written about the sport.  He tries to justify it by talking about Lombardi's half-point coming after being 6 seconds slower than her team-mate in qualifying and glosses over Maria Teresa de Filippis, before enthusing over a failure in testing to get near Daniel Juncadella. 

 

My only hope is that it was so hyperbolically wrong that it was akin to the Mirror's apology to whoever was boning Liz Hurley a few years ago - they were basically told to put in a fulsome apology to avoid libel proceedings.  So they did so.  In such a fulsome way nobody could take it seriously.

 

And Maria de Villota would not have been a likely candidate.  Sorry, she was nowhere near good enough.

[mariner]

It's a bit nostalgia forum but when Ronnie Peterson was coming up through Karting he lost  the Euopean title to an Italian woman , Suzy Raganelli.

 

She was small and he had a few engine problems but any woman who could beat Ronnie  Peterson in such an equal ( and car control) clas must have had REAL talent!

 

She also beat Keke Rosberg

 

Sadly she was killed later in rare karting fatality

 

http://karting.archi...10/56/off-track

Edited by mariner, 08 February 2014 - 10:35.

[Jackmancer]

There's a Dutch team called 'Racing Diva's', which compete in several races such as the Dunlop 24h of Dubai, though not in the top tier. They did win in their class though.

http://www.racingdivas.nl/

[LuckyStrike1]

With someone on the talent level of Danica Patrick, then it's a good idea. Because whatever we like to say about her and the PR machine behind her she is pretty capable behind the wheel. She's just been rushed into NASCAR a bit but although not champion material she was quite decent in IndyCars. 

 

The problem is, there are just so few girls starting in motorsport and even fewer continuing up the ladder that the pickings are slim. 

[BlackCat]

Natacha Gachnang did not impress so much with her driving in F2 - but with her guts. She tried to beat up a boy who crashed into her car, putting 'em both out of race.

[LuckyStrike1]

Natacha Gachnang did not impress so much with her driving in F2 - but with her guts. She tried to beat up a boy who crashed into her car, putting 'em both out of race.

 

 

Guts. Or just simple stupidity. 

[Longtimefan]

I would like female drivers to be on the grid because of their talent and speed, not just as a publicity gimmick.

[micktosin]

I would like female drivers to be on the grid because of their talent and speed, not just as a publicity gimmick.

Considering the current female scarcity in Motorsport, I will be happy with a female driver with a 70% talent of charles Pic. 

[kraduk]

Luca has banged on about 3rd cars for teams for a while. Why not let him have it, but on the proviso that teams have to run a women in it? Sure for the first few years it might not  work out to  well at 1st but with time things would work, as it inspirs a new generation, and changes to status quo. If it was found as a whole women were slower, then why not have a womens championship run alongside the normal WDC and WCC?

 

If people are serious about having women in top level racing were we must accept there has to be an artificial way to get them there initially, as things are stacked to much about them at the moment. I always get the feeling peoples attitudes in racing are a bit backward when it comes to women drivers, as there are many examples in history of this type of thing being done, after say ethnic group x or gender z has been repressed for many years

[Collombin]

It's a bit nostalgia forum but when Ronnie Peterson was coming up through Karting he lost  the Euopean title to an Italian woman , Suzy Raganelli.
 
She was small and he had a few engine problems but any woman who could beat Ronnie  Peterson in such an equal ( and car control) clas must have had REAL talent!
 
She also beat Keke Rosberg
 
Sadly she was killed later in rare karting fatality

Um, no she wasn't. The arguably even more talented Lorraine Peck was though.

[Nonesuch]

If people are serious about having women in top level racing were we must accept there has to be an artificial way to get them there initially, as things are stacked to much about them at the moment. I always get the feeling peoples attitudes in racing are a bit backward when it comes to women drivers, as there are many examples in history of this type of thing being done, after say ethnic group x or gender z has been repressed for many years

 

I don't want to discount this entirely, as I suspect it might be possible that young girls aren't taken as serious as young boys in the lower categories where much less is at stake. But in Formula One, where teams are happy to pay €15+ million a year to hire guys like Alonso or Hamilton I really don't think something as inconsequential as gender is going to prevent them from hiring an amazing talent. I suspect that at F1 level, there are at the moment simply no female drivers who measure up to the guys. There's a fair few in other racing series though.

 

In the long run, such forced inclusion of female drivers might do more harm than good due to the 'girls suck at math'-problem that reinforces stereotypes.

 

Edited by Nonesuch, 08 February 2014 - 13:54.

[JHSingo]

No.

 

A female driver will be perfectly welcome in F1 when there is one that is talented enough. At present, there isn't. As incredibly average as Marcus Ericcson is, he'd still be miles ahead of someone like Susie Wolff.

Edited by JHSingo, 08 February 2014 - 14:33.

[Andrew Hope]

Natacha Gachnang did not impress so much with her driving in F2 - but with her guts. She tried to beat up a boy who crashed into her car, putting 'em both out of race.

 

And if a man had done that imagine the backlash.

 

Considering the current female scarcity in Motorsport, I will be happy with a female driver with a 70% talent of charles Pic. 

 

Another Milka Duno benefits no one.