By Mia Hanuska
Formula One is failing at diversity. Really, motorsport as a whole is disappointing when it comes to presenting a diverse set of drivers, engineers, and mechanics. For a sport that relies so heavily on the fundamental engineering of a car, it is truly surprising how few women are involved. In 2021, McLaren reported a mere “7.5% female representation” on their Formula race staff team; Haas, 9%. From the racers to the cars, women are overwhelmingly absent from the field—why?
First, it is important to address the most obvious, overused, and inherently avoidant response: “well, maybe women just aren’t interested in it.” The arguments later presented are not to dismiss the fact that the likelihood of women having a deep-rooted interest in and desire to work in the field could be lower than that of men, but to emphasize that the very lower likelihood itself could be a result of deep-rooted sexist and discriminatory views towards women in the sport.
A large reason women may not show as strong of an interest into more traditionally-viewed “masculine” fields lies greatly in the lack of community and belonging they may feel while trying to pursue the interest. If every time a woman tries to involve herself in a group she is continually shut out, ridiculed, or bullied, the chance of her cultivating an interest and sharing it with others decreases. Thus, it may not be necessarily that women aren’t interested in motorsports, but that motorsports as a whole have been associated with men for so long that the barriers have become too great for the majority of women to overcome.
From the athletic perspective of the sport, women have been considered physically “inferior” to men, with many men voicing the opinion that women are not capable of withstanding the physical demands the sport requires. However, while women and men do tend to have physical differences, a group of researchers at Michigan State University found that the differences do not translate to negative physiological performance in a racecar; specifically, that a woman’s menstrual cycle—which has often been a “perceived disadvantage” for women in motorsports—has zero detrimental effects on a woman’s ability to race a car. In fact, they found that there tends to be no physical performance differences between the two sexes in motorsports. The harmful belief that women are genetically inferior to men deters women from exploring the sport out of fear of being called a “diversity hire” or a poor performance being blamed on their period. Anytime a woman makes a mistake on the track, they’re labeled “uncompetitive” or “not good enough” to be in racing. The stereotype of women being poor drivers extends to peoples’ views on motorsports, which is ironic since women tend to cause fewer accidents and traffic offenses. What do these comments proliferate? The idea that women should not pursue the sport simply because of their body—or, in other words, because they are not a man.
Women are also simply not encouraged as much as men to join the sport. The motorcar emerged in a generally over-masculine period, in that men were seen as the dominant sex for everything industrial-related (engineering, driving, fixing problems, etc). The aforementioned assumptions about the inferiority of women’s bodies then helped to propel the idea of motor-racing being a “manly” activity and unfit for women. Then, greater commercialization post-WW2 furthered this concept, marginalizing women in order to raise men. Put differently, in order to appeal to men, the media has historically avoided marketing the sport for women, and when they do, it is overly sexual and/or focused on the glamour of the sport, rather than the actual technical and athletic aspects.
For many long-time viewers of motorsports, specifically of Formula 1 (F1), the only representation women received from the media were the grid girls: a group of female models who would advertise promotional material before races. These grid girls were recently banned in 2018, but for a long time, were the only representation women had in F1. As more women joined the sport, the expectations for grid girls spread to the engineers and racers, where female drivers and mechanics were expected to be “feminine and attractive” alongside their competitiveness. This then snowballed into the extreme sexualization of female drivers, especially in the media. Most ads for women in the field focus on their body instead of their skills, most famously seen with NASCAR driver Danica Patrick’s Sports Illustrated image “prioritizing her figure,” as befittingly put by one researcher. Not only does this sexualization of drivers disadvantage women who are actively trying to make a name for themselves in the sport, but it also sends a distorted version of what being a woman in motorsport means for young girls looking for role models.
On the engineering side, women generally face greater hindrances from entering the sport than men simply due to the nature of engineering. As discussed in “The Leaky #WomenInSTEM Pipeline,” the inherent view of engineering—which, for the topic of motorsport, can also be extended into manufacturing—as a “masculine” field creates issues for women interested in pursuing the field. Added onto the additional view of motorsports as a “manly” venture, the environment simply becomes hostile for those women wanting to venture into engineering. Plus, specifically in Formula 1, many female engineers have expressed exclusionary surroundings at trackside events at Grand Prixes, with one woman even being told by a male mechanic, “‘why are you even here?’”
Simply, while the racing organizations try to claim they are “unisex” and that “we race as one,” motorsports have not been accessible, and in many cases, are hardly even safe, for women. Most cars’ safety testing occurs on male bodies, with limited tests on female bodies, and research on training programs are often designed specifically for the male energy cycle, not the women’s. Thus, women are inherently in more danger than men when they do manage to break into the sport. Even little things, like women’s uniforms, are designed without pockets, making it more difficult for women to complete tasks that require certain materials than men. To many, that may sound inconsequential, but it’s a small detail that often limits women in their performance.
In the end though, the obstacles women face in motorsport are systemic issues that are unlikely to solve themselves anytime soon. If large racing and media companies worked together to change the narrative of what it means to be a woman in motorsports, and helped to facilitate more programs, at least at the start, to encourage more women and young girls to pursue an interest in the sport, future years of motorsport could be dominated by women. For now, female representation can be found in F1 Academy, the Formula-4 level series specifically for female drivers. You can also support the following drivers for the 2026 season: Katherine Legge (IndyCar); Toni Breidinger (NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series); Natalie Decker (NASCAR O’Rielly Auto Parts Series); Isabella Robusto, Taylor Reimer, Alli Owens, and Logan Misuraca (NASCAR Menards Series); to name a few. We’re not quite at the checkered flag at equality yet… it seems there are still many laps to go.