Future
Where will the next female F1 driver come from?
by Samarth Kanal
7min read
There hasn’t been a female driver racing in Formula 1 since Lella Lombardi in 1976, so where will the next female F1 driver come from? More Than Equal is one of several programmes and organisations helping nurture young female talent.
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The F1 Academy is already giving young females from the age of 16 race seats at F1-grade racing circuits at a Formula 4 level.
More Than Equal, the series’ official driver performance and research partner, takes a data-driven approach to training females with a view to “finding the first female F1 champion”.
So why is there such a stark gender disparity in terms of the number of drivers behind the F1 wheel, and what will it take to improve this current reality?
F1 Academy is an F4-level FIA series in which only women participate
What differences prevent women from competing in motorsport?
More Than Equal CEO Tom Stanton addressed the physical differences between women and men in motorsport to Raceteq.
“Do I believe that there is a physical barrier to females performing in motorsport and F1? Absolutely not. And the first reason I give is that we have very well-trained, highly-decorated female fighter jet pilots that are routinely subjected to the same forces as their male counterparts, which, by the way, are greater than those you experience in a race car,” he said.
More Than Equal CEO Tom Stanton uses the example of female fighter jet pilots to prove that women can compete effectively in F1
“There's a line of performance you need to reach; I don't believe that that's insurmountable for female drivers. I believe that they can be just as physically capable.”
More Than Equal’s driver development consultant Lauren Forrow points at football training in the UK, where specialised football academies backed by professional teams offer structured training to boys and girls early on.
“Your training age is already pretty significant. Six, seven years' worth of physical development before you get to the point of performing. Some of the [female] drivers have been in karts since they were four, but haven't had any training around it.
“'Turn up and drive': that's your training.”
A More Than Equal member undergoing neck training, a crucial part of preparing for the g-forces of an F1 car
How does More Than Equal train female drivers?
More Than Equal’s mission is to train a female F1 world champion, but its work is very much focused on a grassroots approach.
The programme took in an intake of young female drivers in November 2024 after months of evaluation.
Stanton says: “The cohort of drivers that we have at the moment covers three areas [of training]. One as a performer, as a driver; second as an athlete; and third as a person.”
The programme helps young girls transition from driving go-karts to cars before they make the jump to driving single-seater cars, with Formula 4 generally being the first step.
Private F4 tests can be expensive and many drivers attend shared test days on a circuit, which can be a daunting experience for a rookie. Production road cars are the first step when it comes to training girls to make the step up to single-seaters, and then low-horsepower racing cars.
More Than Equal helps girls bridge the gap between go-karts and single-seaters by training them in sportscars, such as the Ginetta G40
More Than Equal also held a training day for its roster at Blyton Park Race Track, UK, with driver coaching provided by professional sportscar drivers Tom Emson and Adam Smalley and cars provided by British manufacturer Ginetta.
The drivers’ pace improved considerably over the two days of training, but this wasn’t just about lap times.
Physiotherapists from Hintsa, a coaching programme that has worked with numerous F1 drivers, also continued their work with the More Than Equal drivers. One driver, Skye Parker, said this was a “brilliant” inclusion as the Hintsa coaches also ensured she had proper nutrition during the training programme.
Ginetta also provided simulator sessions for the drivers to help them get accustomed to high-speed runs behind the wheel.
It’s training that has worked in F1 and high-level sportscar racing, but this particular programme is, of course, tailored towards young teenage drivers. They build muscle memory, learn how to give feedback to race engineers, and even receive some media training.
Public F4 testing days can be a daunting environment for inexperienced racing drivers, which makes private training days even more crucial
The next step for the drivers is F4 testing.
“We've put together the same routine that we would want to see of them in the F4 environment, putting a car at slightly less speed with an instructor and progressing to driving alone,” said Forrow.
“Too often we hear of female drivers in their F4 car for the first time in a shootout, let's say, and it rains, they're stuck on slicks, and they have a terrible time.
“And they're told: ‘You're not confident enough’, or ‘you've not got the ability’.
“This is about us giving them the ability to drive on a track where they need to find the limits and put those skills into place, but in a safer environment, where we want them to be able to make mistakes.”
More Than Equal is a data-driven programme that shapes its training through findings from disciplines well beyond F1 and motorsport
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The technology and data behind this programme
This roster of female drivers benefits from Hintsa’s coaching, racing cars from Ginetta, and the experience of figures such as Forrow and Stanton, both of whom have spearheaded British cycling performance programmes in the past.
This is a data-driven approach.
Fran Longstaff, More Than Equal’s head of research, is still examining how varying hormones affect performance, with the female drivers also contributing to Manchester Metropolitan University’s ongoing PhD programmes on this topic.
She adds: “We’re also interested in starting a project where we begin to understand how a car might be set up differently for females versus males using digital twin technology to make optimum adjustments.”
Digital twin technology is a process in which a digital model of a racing driver can be made to simulate how they might fit into a cockpit, using biomechanics and motion capture to bolster that data before making changes in the real world.
Everything needs to be considered when training drivers to take on cars rather than karts: weight transfer; gearshift points; braking points; slick tyres; aerodynamics; and more
Much of this research could help find out how to specialise ergonomics and training for female drivers, but there’s a growing realisation that motorsport might be lacking in data-driven training and research.
“There’s very little research on drivers full stop, let alone female drivers. A big thing we’re trying to do is see what ‘good’ looks like and look at male and female drivers along those lines. Benchmarks don’t really exist”.
More Than Equal is trying to characterise the levels of physicality needed to compete in the pathway to F1, with that data shaping how it trains its cohort.
“There's a lot of metrics,’ says Forrow. “Part of what we are working on is a study to say which one of those is the biggest predictors of performance.
“So our hope is, as our database develops, we will be able to predict driver ability physically, cognitively, technically at a very early stage and perhaps predict championships that they might be most suited to.”
That might be a way off, but More Than Equal’s work could have a transformational effect on motorsport as a whole.
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