Women's Health - UK (2019-07)

100 | JULY 2019 Women’s Health

he low-slung silhouette of a race car whips

past like a wasp. Beyond the action, the

sun-bleached minarets of Saudi Arabia’s

capital Riyadh provide the backdrop to this

afternoon’s race. But, trackside, all eyes are

on the car accelerating at 140mph round

the bends of the tarmac circuit. As it hurtles

towards the pit lane, commotion erupts.

Instructions are shouted into headpieces;

mechanics swarm around suspended engine

parts. The car glides to a halt and the driver

hops out. A 5ft 2in figure clad in a white and

blue race suit adorned with sponsor logos

strides towards the flurry and raises gloved

hands to remove the crash helmet, revealing

a mane of thick dark hair. Jamie Chadwick

grins, a smile that fills her face.

Dubbed a generation Z Lewis Hamilton,

Jamie is just one of a new wave of drivers

coming of age and steering motor racing

into the 21st century. You’d be forgiven for

thinking motor sport is all Jeremy Clarkson

wisecracks and blokes showering each other

with magnums of Moët. While men and

women have historically competed on

equal footing in this sport – the car doesn’t

care who’s driving it – women are rare in

Formula One, and many of the women who

have achieved success in this sport have

done so as test drivers, trialling the cars and

the track for their (usually male) teammates.

Quite simply, women haven’t had a platform

on which to perform. Until now. Last month

saw the launch of the W Series, the first ever

all-female motor racing championship and

brainchild of veteran racer David Coulthard

and motor sports enthusiast Catherine

Bond Muir. The goal? To provide a space

to showcase female drivers. Elsewhere,

on a platform of another ilk, young female

drivers are doing their own PR, posting

photos of hot pink racing cars and trophies

to Instagram alongside the gym selfies and

holiday snaps that could characterise any

young woman’s feed – and with it, helping

to consign Clarkson to the history books.

GRINDING GEARS

Of the almost 900 drivers who have raced in Formula

One’s 69-year history, a grand total of two have been

female – the most recent to start an F1 race did so in

1976. Flick on F1 on a Sunday afternoon and you’ll
      see men in the pit lane, men in the drivers’ seats and
      hear male voices coming from the commentary box.
      ‘Drivers are required to bring in their own
      sponsorship in order to get a place on a team,’
      explains Jean Williams, professor of sport at
      Wolverhampton University. And with the cost of
      funding a junior racer from go-karting level through
      to the heady heights of F1 estimated to be around
      a million euros (£860,000), you can understand
      why. ‘Those decisions are based on the visibility of
      the drivers to those outside the industry. It means
      that in order to attract sponsors, drivers, male or
      female, need to have a media profile. But until the
      latter are winning races regularly, they won’t have
      a profile – so the cycle continues.’ It’s a catch-22;
      women can’t get sponsorship without a platform,
      and they can’t get a platform without sponsorship.
      But why have women been left in the dust while
      male drivers have sped off into the sunset? Well,

NAME

Esmee Hawkey

INSTA BIO

@esmee_hawkey

CAREER

HIGHLIGHT

Becoming the

GT Cup Vice

Champion in 2016

BACK-UP PLAN

As if she wasn’t

busy enough

already, Esmee

is currently

squeezing in her

accountancy

training exams

alongside her

racing career

NAME
Jamie Chadwick
INSTA BIO
R @jamiechadwick55

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