Women Only Series Created

[MikeTheNative]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport/45802348

A new women-only motorsport series has been launched in an attempt to find potential female Formula 1 stars.
W Series will start in 2019 and is backed by a number of major F1 names, including 13-time grand prix winner David Coulthard and Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey.
W Series aims to attract up to 20 of the world's leading female racing drivers to compete for a $1.5m (£1.14m) prize fund across six races in Europe, and will include a round in the UK. The cars will be identical and be provided and run by the championship.

The championship is free to enter, and competitors will be selected through a programme that assesses their abilities. The winner will receive $500,000 (£381,000) to help further her career, as well as support and advice from the experts employed by the series.

To me this seems outright bizarre and more about stroking the egos of those involved to seem like they are helping rather than doing something that will make sense. Currently there is not enough decent woman drivers in the system to make this work. Your going to have a select few cruise to the championship and waste a year, where they could have developed their skill set in a more established championship with the top male drivers.

There is a big prize fund as well as the drives being funded so there must be serious money behind this. To me it would make more sense from them to sponsor the careers of some of the more promising young female drivers rather than giving a seat to someone with no talent. The biggest problem with low female representation is the lack of those taking up in the first place. Why isn't some of this money going to promote young girls to do karting or even have a go at ginetta juniors?

Will this find the first woman F1 driver like the article asks? The answer is almost definitely no but it will give the better female drivers a pay day for a while I suppose.

 

[MikeTheNative]

just saw that there is a thread in GD about this but I'd rather post here where you have people who regularly watch motorsport. Interesting you mention Chadwick but she had a promising GT career ahead of her, at the time was the youngest GT4 champion ever and had good pace. However as you said her switch to F3 has been rather underwhelming, if she goes to this series next year it will be a backwards step. Why would teams sign drivers which have been driving in inferior series?

 

[MikeTheNative]

Currently, no. I imagine there will be more if this carries on, though.
We have womens' football, tennis, athletics, basketball, boxing, martial arts and all manner of other sports. It hasn't brought the sky crashing down yet... I might even suggest that it has encouraged more women to take the sports up, both professionally and as a hobby. Or it might just be that I happen to know an awful lot of girls who play Womens' Football in their spare time..... which is a shame, as I hate football!

From reading a little, I see women have had some success in mixed motorsports (NASCAR, motorcycles and drag racing, I believe), but they're a minority.
I'm wondering if more women would actually be encouraged to take it up, which would mean there'd be more to compete in mixed sports later on.
Or it could just be that men can be egotistical dicks and they don't want to be around that in the first place...

If they are really thinking long term about the female up take of the sport. Will young girls be inspired by a bit part middle tier all female racing series that will likely be forgotten about in the second season? Or watching talented females take on their male counter parts? The difference between the team sports you mentioned, is the top is segregated, if you want females to compete with men in F1 then they need to compete with men going up the ladder or they will be woefully under equipped. I don't understand why they didn't just fund seats in current racing series, put 5 of the promising girl karters in Ginetta Junior seats, and buy 4 seats in F3 and give it to the ones who look good in juniors etc.

 

[MikeTheNative]

As mentioned, I see plenty of women playing football, compared to when I were a lad...
I also don't believe there are any women competing in the football Premiership against... err.... Ronaldo? Beckham? Man-U? Ok, I really don't know about football, but I'm certain there are no women in the top tier there, which is just as segregated as this is. But it's still popular, nonetheless.

yeah that is what I am saying. A women could never play with Messi, Ronaldo etc, but they could drive alongside Hamilton. A woman can drive in F1 and there has been a few in the past but frankly there hasn't been any fast enough for a number of years now, the main reason for this is only 5% of the drivers in the first place are female.

 

[MikeTheNative]

So anything that gets more women taking the sport up is a good thing, and then it's just a case of convincing enough to transition over to the main F1 and compete against men?

/QUOTE]

This isn't a rival to F1, it's on the ladder up to it. Presumably they would then move onto to GP3, F2 etc, then F1. If you want to get more young girls karting then target that, hold open days to let girls try it for free, sponsor some girls to do. Sadly that doesn't grab enough headlines or exposure for those in charge. So they decide to make this big shiny racing series that will not really expose more girls who aren't already interested, into it.

 

[MikeTheNative]

=


Pretty much.
However, giving them a flourishing series as welcoming as possible will at least let them try it and see if they want to do it, without it being all about comparing them to men from the get-go.

There is nothing above this though just for Woman v Woman, if they want to make motorsport as their career then will have to compete against men. Also I think you getting a bit confused as to where this series sits, it's not for people to 'give it a try', it's for woman who already want to make motorsport their career and have some experience.

I see the funding for winning is £381,000, that may sound a lot but that probably wouldn't even pay for a season of GP3. I just hope they don't end up having to bring in people who are 25+ just to make up the numbers

edit -

just looked it up and GP3 is around £600,000 a season!

 

[MikeTheNative]

No, it's for women to see, idolize, and then start at a local racetrack, in teh same way little boys see Ronaldo or Beckham, idolize the Premiership, but then start out at their local Junior League teams.... in my understanding, anyway.

It's not F1 for woman, this isn't meant to be the pinnacle of woman's motor sport. It's a race to prepare woman for F1, I think this is where you getting confused. How many young boys and girls have a idolise GP3 driver and this is the level of competition it will sit at? (probably a bit lower to be honest)

 

[MikeTheNative]

It isn't a good way to prepare them for F1 really, because it's lowering the bar compared to GP3, GP2, etc. Most of the F1 drivers are champions already.

If they were F1 material they would already be on the way there and consistently winning in GP2/3. I can't see the first women jumping to F1 from this and quickly finding there is a massive skill gap. Then throwing in the towel after a short time.

Probably my choice of words trying to get a message through. But yes people aren't going to be going to F1 from this but onto GP3/F2 then to F1. Although Max went straight from Euro F3 to F1 you don't see people skipping GP3/F2 straight to F1. I reckon this will sit under GP3, maybe the same liver as euro F3 or could be even lower.

 

[MikeTheNative]

One of the ways to assess the idea is to consider who would watch it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't, seeing as I only really watch a bit of F2 outside F1.

No one really watches the lower series TV wise. Euro F3, British F3 which this series will be comparable to, they still exisxt despite little exposure to those outside of the hardcore motosport fan.

 

[MikeTheNative]

So if nobody's watching it and most here seem to agree that it isn't going to do much for the people competing in it, then what is the point of it?

As per my opening post it seems just for the organisers to pat themselves on them back to say how much they are helping rather than targeting the problem. There has just been a team announced that they are fielding an all woman team in next year's daytona 24 hours. They have got Katherine Legge on board who is currently 2nd in the GTD standings.

 

[MikeTheNative]

I feel like your trolling at this point. It's not trying to follow the same path as woman's team sports. I don't know how many times your going to ignore people telling you this.

 

[MikeTheNative]

I have to fundamentally disagree on that. If I was setting up a gender specific series with the specific intention of getting more visibility for female drivers to encourage others and get more into the sport, the very first thing I'd want on my launch prerequisites would be a media partner / broadcaster.

Have to be realistic there isn't much of a market for this level of motorsport. I'm sure someone will pick up the highlights and maybe even live rights (BT show euro F3 both live and highlight package), British F3 has highlights show as well not sure about it being shown live. But there is not going to be much TV audience who watch this other than the first race out of curiosity. Despite Taskmaster's thoughts that the organisers want to be taking on F1 as the top dog of motorsport, the people behind this know what to expect in both audience and exposure. Their target is top equip Female drivers which the experience/skill to make it to GP3/F2 level (whether you think this is the best way is another question). More visibility for Female drivers at this level makes no sense as how many F3 drivers can people name?

 

[MikeTheNative]

I really don't understand the fuss over this. Almost every sport has a women's version; why not motorsport?

The goal of the series is not to segregate Woman's Motorsport like it is in Football, Rugby, Athletics etc. The goal is to prepare young girls to get further up to F1 ladder GP3, F2 then F1 etc.

 

[MikeTheNative]

The goal isn't segregation, but the end result will be.

Woman need their own series for football, rugby and athletics because they're physically not able to compete at men's levels. That's not sexist, that's a plain fact. In motorsport that is not the case. Women can compete at the exact same level as men because it's stamina that's required, not physical strength. Segregating yourselves away is a shortsighted answer to that issue.

If they really wanted to help then the solution would have been some kind of funding scheme for young women drivers who have already shown talent in junior formula where both sexes compete, not this sideshow to obscurity.

I 100% agree this is the wrong way to go about it. However this will not result in other women only series and the majority of women will still be racing against men. I'm giving this series 2/3 years before it fizzles out.