Look, I’m a huge believer in bringing more women into traditionally male roles in motorsport, including race seats. When my site was active, we were outspoken cheerleaders on the subject. I believe one of the F1 circus’s biggest lost opportunities was letting Simona de Silvestro slip away to American racing, and if I had a few spare millions down the back of the sofa I’d be investing it in Alice Powell.
But Maria de Villota has as much business being sat in an F1 car as I have. If you watched Superleague you’d have seen she was embarrassingly bad. Slow, stubborn when being lapped, and prone to hitting other cars. Some Superleague drivers were very good indeed, but the tail of the field was weak or inexperienced or both – and she was worse than the worst of them by quite a margin.
Yesterday when the press release went out from Mark Blundell’s 2MB that they were representing her, it was a real shocker. This goes a long way to explaining it.
But, please, no-one get the idea that this is the long-awaited and (for me at least) long hoped-for arrival of a female challenger in F1. She’s not up to the job. It’s not her age, it’s not her gender, it’s not even that money is certainly involved – it’s what she’s like behind the wheel.
As the old saying goes, she couldn’t drive a nail into a plank of wood.
