Chance for a female driver?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Endless-Wilso
  • 20 comments
  • 4,666 views
No - she's rubbish and its a case of husband owning the team...

Please can we stop talking about drivers like this like they actually have any talent and have a chance of getting to F1?

Before it was Natacha Gachnang, before her it was Danica Patrick...when will people learn not to keep jumping on these bandwagons to nowhere? Granted some like Danica and Katherine Legge are ok/decent in certain cars. But come on, lets stop bigging up people who stand no chance simply because of their gender..

I have to laugh at the Bernie bit added on the end :lol:.
 
Chance? Sure. I'm guessing noone knows how good she is in an Open-wheel car so I'll reserve judgment.

Di Resta was in DTM, and does decent in F1. Granted, he was at the tip-top of the DTM field, and Stoddart is usually at the back...
 
hawkeye122
Di Resta was in DTM, and does decent in F1. Granted, he was at the tip-top of the DTM field, and Stoddart is usually at the back...
Click to expand...
To be fair, Wolff has been racing in three-year-old machinery. In 2011, she was driving a 2008 Mercedes. The rules for DTM this year have changed, so everyone will be racing a brand-new car - even the backmarker teams, like Persson Motorsport (Wolff's team). But I don't think much will come of it. Mercedes proved with di Resta that a driver can move from DTM to Formula 1, and they've since hired Robert Wickens, Roberto Merhi and Christian Vietoris, all of whom are younger and far more promising than Wolff. I'd expect to see all three of them promoted to Formula 1 before Wolff, even if she is with Williams, a Renault-powered team.

If, for whatever reason, a vacancy becomes available at Williams this season, then I expect Valterri Bottas will step in. Williams appear to be quite eager to get him racing. Wolff would probably only get called up if two vacancies became available in the team, at which point I would have to wonder what the hell Williams are doing to their drivers.
 
To be fair, she does have single seater experience. In her 3rd year of Formula Renault she finished 5th. She was also going to race in Formula 3 but didn't due to an ankle injury.

In DTM she was constantly racing in outdated machinery but still managed to get results (if you count only the older machinery). I still don't think she can cut it in Formula 1, but she isn't a talentless fool.
 
prisonermonkeys
they've since hired Robert Wickens, Roberto Merhi and Christian Vietoris, all of whom are younger and far more promising than Wolff. I'd expect to see all three of them promoted to Formula 1
Click to expand...

Who is they?

Of course, I'd expect Vietoris to go to F1, he did decent in GP2
 
Has anybody noticed that Virgin/Marussia have a female test driver. I'm not familiar with what her situation there is, but I wonder if we will see her in some Friday practices sometime.
 
hawkeye122
Who is they?
Click to expand...
Robert Wickens beat Jean-Eric Vergne to last year's Formula Renault 3.5 title. He also placed second in the 2010 GP3 Series season, second in the 2009 Formula 2 championship, and third in the 2007 Champ Car Altantic series. He's had success in just about every category he's raced in, and it's at the point where there is nothing more he can learn in the junior categories. Personally, I think he is ready for Formula 1 more than any other driver.

As for Merhi, he won the F3 Euroseries last year, and he had a few podiums in GP3 back in 2010. He also gained a bit of notoriety after he couldn't get a sponsor package together for a GP2 campaign this year, and was highly critical of the series for escalating costs.
 
hawkeye122
Chance? Sure. I'm guessing noone knows how good she is in an Open-wheel car so I'll reserve judgment.

Di Resta was in DTM, and does decent in F1. Granted, he was at the tip-top of the DTM field, and Stoddart is usually at the back...
Click to expand...

Di Resta won the championship, kind of means something eh? Simply existing in DTM or Formula Renault doesn't mean anything...particularly when you frequently run at the back year after year.

A quick look at driverdb shows that she had a couple of decent results in Formula Renault and thats it. Won some kart races it looks like and did ok in Formula Ford and various other junior series. But nothing that really makes her stand out as anything special, certainly not F1 material..or any kind of top-international series material.
Arguably she doesn't really have a place in DTM on any kind of merit.

dudedo
Has anybody noticed that Virgin/Marussia have a female test driver. I'm not familiar with what her situation there is, but I wonder if we will see her in some Friday practices sometime.
Click to expand...

Please no, lets not put a useless driver in the car just for sponsorship/publicity exposure.
 
Last edited:
Oh we are all performance analysis experts now?

Give the girl a chance for crying out loud.
 
I think it would be epic to have a starting female driver in F1. I'm not sure she'll be the one, though.
 
MildAshers
Oh we are all performance analysis experts now?

Give the girl a chance for crying out loud.
Click to expand...

Why give her a chance more than anyone else? Just because of her gender? Because her husband owns the team? Because these are the only reasons Williams have even bothered.
I certainly don't mind/care if she gets a test. But I don't see any reason to give her a race seat over the much more impressive Bottas. Nor do I suggest anyone wanting to see a female driver in F1 starts supporting her - its only going to end in disappointment.

If we get a female driver with a decent record, sure give them a chance and lets find out if they really are good enough. But why should we parade mediocre or rubbish drivers just because of their gender? Doesn't this work against getting rid of the image of female drivers not being good enough?
 
I don't think there's ever been a better female driver than Michelle Mouton, and I think the way media jump on the female driver band wagon just ramps up everybodies expecations of a driver that usually isn't that good.
 
I'll rank TWO female drivers up there with the absolute best men in their respective categories. Neither in circuit racing though

Undisputed Number 1
(if you don't need context, skip directly to 0:50)
[YOUTUBEHD]8NnmkeyraRc[/YOUTUBEHD]


Undisputed Number 2
(Dakar 2001 overall winner. Amazingly, I found no tribute video about her)
[YOUTUBEHD]OLYHcYum0tA[/YOUTUBEHD]
 
I've got no problem with her being there simply because of her gender and her husband. If she's good enough she could earn her place at the front, if she's not - then she'd be no worse than many of the other tail end drivers who didn't earn their drives purely through driving skill.
 
If a woman can drive well enough to be competitive with the men in the sport then I have no problem with it.
 
I have to say I have no time for people who got there just because their family / husband / friend etc owns / runs / knows a team.
 
There was this poll years ago in a belgian magazine, where men were asked what were their biggest fears.

I remember "being overtaken on the highway by a woman in a fiat panda" was in the top 3 :)

But being Belgian, we've got vanina ickx (yes daughter of...):

 

Similar threads

Jordan
SpeedBites: A Daily Automotive and Motorsports Newsletter
3 4 5
Replies
135
Views
23K
SpeedBites
SpeedBites
mustafur
Female Racing World Championship?
6 7 8
Replies
220
Views
11K
twitcher
twitcher
Batschisane52
High Speed tune for the Ferrari Dino '71
Replies
2
Views
1K
Batschisane52
Batschisane52
SkateNj
  • Locked
Formula 1 moving back to 1.6 turbo V6
Replies
6
Views
6K
Akmuq
Akmuq
Jimlaad43
Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2019
2
Replies
58
Views
5K
baldgye
B

Latest Posts

Back