Female driver would have to deliver - Williams
- Published on 12 Jul 2016 15:49
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- By: Dominik Wilde
Williams' deputy team principal Claire Williams has said that she would only sign a woman driver if they were good enough.
Williams were the last team to field a female driver on a Grand Prix weekend when Susie Wolff posted the 13th fastest time in first free practice at last year's British Grand Prix.
Wolff has since retired and no female drivers have participated in a Grand Prix weekend since.
"I'd love to see a female driver lining up on the grid but it can't just be for the sake of having a female driver in F1," said Williams. "Our sport is very much a meritocracy. You have to have to be the best of the best.
"I wouldn't put a female in our car just because I wanted to put a female in our line-up," she continued. "They have to be able to do the job and be able to deliver."
Despite the lack of female drivers in Formula One, Williams, one of two female team bosses currently in F1, insists that there are more women in other roles than ever before.
"The landscape is shifting now and we are seeing more and more women working in F1, which is fantastic," she told Sky Sports News."It is a sport which is very welcoming and accessible to females and that's across lots of different disciplines."
"We are seeing more girls coming into jobs behind the scenes in things like engineering and as aerodynamicists. That's great to see but there is still more work to be done if we are going to get a balance."
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Replies (1)
Login to replyCloxxki
Posts: 13
And if she was as good as Maldonado and came with as much sponsorship money? :-)
He did win a GP in a Williams, but I'm not sure even Williams know how :-) theories say it was a special set of tires courtesy of Bernie on Frank's 70th birthday. Great stuff.
In Formula E, Simona de Silvestro has been mostly slower than her (highly rated) teammate, but she doesn't lose too much time really. How would that (say a few tenths of a second in FE) compare to F1 on a GP course?
Carmen Jorda at Renault, we know loses 3-4 seconds a lap on a good day in a GP3 car. Which makes you require to be real pretty to get allowed to even work in hospitality in F1, let alone in some driving related role. Basically (and I may be generous here), half the women on Earth could manage that level if they wanted to and committed to racing for a while.
Who are the quick women to look out for now, which ones are not made look silly by the surround boy drivers?