F1 ‘ripe for change’ as Blyton track hosts girls’ race training

Young female drivers claim “boys don’t respect us” when competing to become future F1 stars.

Blyton Park in Lincolnshire hosted the More Than Equal training camp where an elite cohort of female drivers tested Ginetta G40 cars.

Ivonn, 14, has been racing since she was six, she said: “If you can’t handle a girl being in front of you, this isn’t the sport for you. Go play football or something.”

Tom Stanton boss of More Than Equal said: “We’ve been searching the globe for the drivers that have the right things, and we think we’ve got those things in the women here, so watch this space.”

More Than Equal finds young drivers with high potential and enrols them in a fully funded driver development programme designed for female drivers founded by former F1 world champion David Coulthard.

A woman has not scored points in the F1 World Championship since Lella Lombardi in 1975 but More Than Equal are “committed to changing this”.

Ivonn, who lives in Austria, comes from a background in racing and said her dad encouraged her when she was young to pursue it as a career.

She said: “It’s a difficult industry as often boys don’t respect you and you have to earn their respect.”

Her advice for girls looking to start is “to just do it” she added, “there’s nothing stopping you and if boys give you a hard time, just give them a harder time next time.”

Skye wants to be the first female F1 champion and her mum Emma said the family are “fully supportive of Skye’s lifestyle choice.”

Due to the industry being male dominated she believes: “People don’t like girls being fast, it’s getting better but things still happens a lot.”

She said: “Boys will still put her in the barrier rather than finishing behind her.

“They would rather they didn’t finish and the girl didn’t finish then finish behind the girl and get told they’ve just been beaten by a girl.”

Katrina, 15, from Hong Kong, currently races in the Ginetta Junior series and has won the Asian karting championships, she has recently recovered from a broken shoulder.

She explained: “I was really proud of myself as it made me realise I can beat the boys and nothing is impossible even if you are in a male dominated sport.”

“I remember there was a time when two or three drivers ganged up on me just to purposely push me off and their teams would gather, plan and talk about it.”

Katrina said she had to tell herself not to let it knock her confidence or be afraid to push them back.

Tom Stanton believes women have struggled to reach F1 because they face funding challenges when “massively outnumbered by talented males”.

He said: “Our programme is unapologetically female focused, it’s age and stage appropriate and we’re trying to unmask the challenges we see, as for female drivers we have to do things differently.”

“There’s no reason why we wouldn’t have future champions here today, the sport is absolutely ripe for this change and we want to bring it.”