Kevin Turner
Editor
[email protected]NEXT WEEK
29 AUGUST
Who are the most powerful
people in motorsport?
We reveal our
2019 list22 AUGUST 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 3It is now 43 years since Lella Lombardi (above) started the 1976
Austrian Grand Prix, the last time a woman raced in the Formula 1
World Championship. Given the technological and social changes
that have happened during that time, that is ridiculous.
As Autosport’s fi rst Women in Motorsport special in August
2015 showed, it’s largely a numbers game. Only very few karters
ever make it to F1 and a vast majority (nearly 96% according to
Motorsport UK’s fi gures on page 25) of them are boys, which
goes a long way to explaining the wait.
The key is getting more girls and women interested in the sport,
and challenging the wider perception that ‘it’s a man’s game’.
Several initiatives, including Dare to be Diff erent and the new-
for-2019 W Series, have attempted to do just that in recent years.
This week we take a look at what they have acheived, what still
needs to be done, and talk to many successful motorsport women.
Thanks to the high profi le of the W Series, inaugural champion
Jamie Chadwick has shot to prominence this season. As Chadwick
points out in our interview on p15, she isn’t racing to show what
women can do – she’s simply a driver trying to get as high up
the racing ladder as she can – but hopefully she is an inspiration.
W Series should not be judged on whether Chadwick, or her
immediate successors, get to F1, but on how many more young girls
it encourages to take up the sport. Then those stats will change.
The aim of getting more women into motorsport should be self-
explanatory, but we are living in strange times. Motorsport needs
all the fans, participants and supporters it can get. Why on Earth
would it only want to embrace 50% of the population?
Stopwatches aren’t sexist and performance is what it’s all about.
As Australian Supercars team boss Betty Klimenko says, “If they
can do the job, they get the job”.
When will a woman
race in F1 again?
MCKLEINCOVER IMAGES
Motorsport Images/HonePIT & PADDOCK
4 Honda’s Red Bull engine dilemma
6 ORECA in hypercar talks
8 Earnhardt escapes plane crash
11 Opinion: Edd Straw
12 Opinion: Lucy Morson
13 Feedback: your letters14 W Series champion Jamie Chadwick
22 Susie Wolff Q&A and licence stats
27 Taking on the Le Mans challenge
28 The chicken farmer dominating Europe
32 Leading women working in motorsport
36 Petronas engineer Stephanie Travers
38 Clubmans champion Michelle Hayward
42 Almost winning the Targa FlorioRACE CENTRE
44 BTCC: Honda strikes back at Thruxton
50 World of Sport: IndyCar; Super Formula;
NASCAR CupCLUB AUTOSPORT
64 Dario Franchitti to make racing return
66 Motorsport UK needs you
69 Laguna Seca celebrates special birthday
71 Opinion: Stephen Lickorish
72 National reports: Thruxton; Snetterton;
Silverstone; Anglesey; Mondello Park
82 National focus: marshallingFINISHING STRAIGHT
84 What’s on this week
87 Motorsport memory: Van Diemen RF
88 From the archive: Silverstone, 1954
90 Pit your wits against our quizSUBSCRIPTION OFFER
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