Broadly speaking, if you had to pertain to any particular one of the following, which would it be...? A) Women will most likely never be successful in F1, they are inferior to males biologically and cannot cope with the physical requirements. B) Women have no excuse other than an engendered lack of interest at early ages compared with male rivals, seeing as F1 is actually a sport where being at peak physical fitness is not necessarily as important as other sports, and these women actually use their gender hypocritically, as in other sports as both a means to an undeserved shortcut to success and a means for blaming others for their failings. They need to shut it, get out there, win consistently against males, and win a seat. C) Women are held back massively in sport, through funding, through disingenuous gender discrimination, and more needs to be done to facilitate more X chromosomes on the F1 grid. D) F1 is in full pay-seat mode these days, and Susie Wolff is a damn sight easier on the eyes than Pastor Maldonado!!! E) I don't care about women in F1, I don't want to read about it, I don't want to think about it. F1 should always be about the best drivers competing in fast cars, on amazing race-tracks and the pure theatre of motor-racing. It doesn't matter whether they're women, men, something in between, I just do not flat-out give two ****s, RACE DAMNIT!!!!!!!
B & E, but B relates to a lot of PC BS, equality should be equality, if one must pass a certain criteria to qualify, then so should the other. Race, sex, religion shouldn't come into it. On a side note, Suzie Wolffs boss is a women and doesn't fancy putting her in an F1 seat either, I guess she's sexist? Wolff doesn't deserve to be anywhere near an F1 car, unless it's on the grid and she's holding a stick with a number on it, and I'd suggest she was past her best for that too.
Bernie Ecclestone and miggins would prefer women to be the ditsy bubbly girls making the grid and podiums look glamorous rather than driving the cars. His suggestion was also to have a separate women's series away from the men. This kind of attitude will not help women get into F1. I wouldn't expect a woman to be a world beater right away but I'm sure they can be better than some of the garbage that come from the lower leagues. I'm not looking at you Yuji Ide... Your safe. Would Wolff beat Stevens/Mehri? I would like to find out. Somebody fund her a race weekend at manor!
If they're good enough then they can race. If they're not, then don't. Simple as that. If anything, if they're even somewhat close to good enough, some team will pick them simply because they're a woman. I'm all for women racing, but drivers like Wolff and Jorda have no right being near the circuit.
That statement outlines in an instant the issues most women will face trying to get into F1. Well highlighted Miggins For those who say Wolff should be nowhere near an F1 car, in her 3 Friday outings with Williams so far, has she actually disgraced herself at any point? I'd say she's put in a pretty good account of herself. As di Fredsta states, if they're good enough then they should race. Problem with limited testing etc, is you only find out if they are good enough once they are racing. There are plenty of very average male drivers on the grid, who without their money, would be no where near an F1 car. No one has yet taken a 'gamble' on whether any female is good enough. The risk of it being a PR disaster seems to outweigh the potential upside if they are any good.
yeah, me and Claire williams are both mysoginists. We completely ignore Mrs Wolffs amazing results in lower formulae motor-racing simply because she has tits. your arguments are stupid beyond belief, I hope you get what you desire, people in control of you totally ill-equipped to do their job, given it simply to satisfy some hypocritically PC 'equality' bullshit that is anything but equal. I have absolutely no problem with a woman being in F1, as long as she is good enough and has the previous results o warrant it, wolff isn't and hasn't, 4 podiums in 15 years of motor-sport clearly show her level. There are far better female racing drivers in the UK, younger and with far better results, but they aren't married to a big-wheel in the WCC champions executive set-up and none of them get column inches blabbing their mouths about how sexist her sport is, to the point of insinuating her female boss is sexist, to the appallingly sexist BBC who constantly push their BS PC agenda. I prefer to have the best person for the job, and I couldn't give two ****s on their race, sex, religious or political leanings, never have, I do, however, take massive exception for people being given advantages simply because of them.
better look away now...... http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/119001 all female team for the Indy 500, headed up by Katherine Legge, famous for totalling an Indycar and walking away.
Who would you say is the worst qualified pay driver today? My bet would probably be Marcus Ericsson, who's pre F1 record was that he has won races in GP2 and won the Japanese F3 championship. Susie Wolff's entire career highlights are 3 podiums in formula renault. They don't compare well. You can't hand out opportunities in F1 to everybody, you need to something to earn it (even if money goes a long way towards that) There's desperately small numbers of women in junior fomula (and presumably in Karts), that's what where i would be trying to make progress rather than dumping unworthy drivers in F1 seats.
Junior formula is not always an indicator. Budgets & professionalism of the teams still play a part in how well a driver can do, though of course a seriously good driver will always shine through. no606 fave Kobayashi didn't have a great record before he got to F1. Don;t get me wrong, she is no Schumacher, but as Miggins conveniently ignored during his ranting response to my post, what has she actually done wrong since she has had her outings with Williams? Not saying she should replace Massa/Bottas or anything daft life that, but would any other bona-fide pay driver have done any better?
Ideally, success in anything would be entirely attributable to talent*, determination and dedication. –But let's get real… Since opportunity is not necessarily attuned to desire or ability, it is important for an organisation to make efforts to provide for as many as possible; the aim being to facilitate those who want to discover if they are sufficiently talented to excel. This approach is an idealistic goal in common with much of society, where it exists at all scales from family to national government and beyond. However, such rationale is more than altruistic: it is in the long-term interests of any organisation to facilitate as many as possible – the larger group being more likely to contain exceptionally talented individuals capable of improving the average – with a corresponding raising of standards for all. So far, I think most are likely to agree with the logic. After all, don't most hope for a better future? – But having agreed such ideals, we find ourselves facing the hurdles of practicality… I will not bore readers with even a skeleton route to F1 (especially since every story is different) but let's look at the first steps to see filtering processes already taking hold. 1] The first hurdle: aspiration; specifically: initial interest. Oh, and some spare cash and/or benevolence. Notice this involves neither talent nor gender; but it does require sufficiently prolonged interest to make a commitment and encourage support from others (especially family and friends) who may be able to help. Initial interest is usually sparked within a family and for whatever reason is usually the father-figure, consciously or not. Only now do we see that these aspirational elements may have already been influenced or part-filtered through gender. Most will have a passing interest and drop out of the pool right here. Whatever the reasons, most who reach the next hurdle will be relatively talentless males. Talent will only play a part later and only if these boxes all remain ticked. 2] The second hurdle: continued interest; determination; dedication; quite a bit more money. Motor racing is expensive. All aspects of motor racing are expensive (with the exception of those wonderful people in the mud and rain with fire-extinguishers, flags and medical expertise, without whom we would grind to an instant halt). So who is going to pay for the first vehicle and its maintenance on some hopeful's ladder? Even at this stage, we enter the realm of unequal opportunity, especially since getting started very early (often before earning one's own income) will become a major advantage. Most cannot afford it. Talent has not yet surfaced. Most of those who ticked everything under '1]' will fall by the way-side here, talent or not. Perhaps subject to greater social influences, gender may become more relevant. Of course, it is also a matter for debate as to whether males and females have fundamentally differing mentalities more or less inclined towards excitement, adrenalin and the all-essential 'competitive streak'. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that most who clear this hurdle are male. 3] The third hurdle: much more determination; much more dedication; far more money. How does one become competitive enough to get noticed? Bear in mind that unfortunately 'talent-spotting' rarely starts at club-racing and is often a matter of luck to become the word of someone else's mouth. All racers are competitive by nature but at any and all levels, only one person wins a race; only one person can win a championship per season. Assuming money+money has provided a competitive vehicle, bottom rung of talent ladder may now be reached by a lucky few. It might be considered expensive by most. Loads of competitive types will not register their talent. Horses will fall whether they couldn't clear the fence or simply stumbled on bad ground, and most are put out to pasture as money dries up and disillusionment takes hold. The pasture will contain plenty of undiscovered, never-to-be-discovered, mostly male talent. 4] The fourth hurdle: ~95% Money + ~5% Talent. Assuming the F1 hopeful is still here and now holds (or is about to hold) a national licence, proper guidance, tuition and coaching becomes very important – not to mention a very rapidly inflating budget. It is considered expensive by most. Talent begins to play a role: if we're optimistic, it might be up to about 5%. Roughly 95% who clear this hurdle do so with money. 5] Still here? OK, obviously loads of cash, so let's see how good you are. Competitive spirit is already a given but determination and dedication now come into their own. There are many more hurdles ahead and all of them are very expensive**… - - -o0o- - -N.B. *I use the term talent as a relative term to describe a person as exceptionally gifted amongst her/his peer-group. ** But all your sponsors know that by now. Whilst on the subject of sponsorship, I think I should say that relative to most but not all of those who fell at various hurdles, any driver who gets onto an F1 grid is exceptionally talented. Yep: that includes Maldonado, Ericsson et al, whose talent is way out of reach of at least one of the hopefuls recently mentioned in this thread.
I clicked the like button under Miggins' post but I would like to emphasise the bit I liked. I have therefore edited and emboldened it.
I agree she doesn't merit the drive in F1. But her participation could be the catalyst of more female interest in the sport. But since she has got that test role her performance hasn't been that bad so it wouldn't be a total embarrassment if she got the opportunity to actually race. Not with Williams though...
Oh yes. I totally agree about the possible/probable catalyst effect. If there is to be a shift in thinking, participation at the top is the best place to wave a banner. It will generate extra interest which should encourage participation especially from any under-represented group. As I said above, it is a good thing to have more people to choose from. My point was perhaps lost whilst describing the current state of affairs of talent v cash regardless of gender; that talent emerges from the shadow only when sufficient cash provides its platform; and that this becomes more important at higher levels, hence an increased requirement for sponsorship. I stopped short of mentioning the motivation underpinning sponsorship, which of course is 'exposure'. And the fact that we are discussing it is clear evidence that a female driver is an attractive proposition for sponsorship due to the increased exposure. Like it or not, cash is essential when it costs so much to go racing. Like it or not, F1 is one of the biggest global platforms for a sponsor and by far the biggest in motor-sport. Oddly enough, it is this increased profile which drives costs up precisely because it attracts more interest from all parties. And like it or not, what motivates any particular sponsor to part with cash is a matter for them, regardless of our ideal that talent should always prevail. I hope it will be seen that I am not suggesting that female drivers are less talented. No! For whatever reason, they are simply rarer and this rarity can be a motivating factor for the essential cash supplier, whether it sits with our idealised notion or not.
The reasons are obvious, but we're not allowed to say 'there are physiological and neurological differences' because, despite those differences being so patently obvious, it's un-PC. Men and women are built and programmed differently, we have different inbuilt motivational impulses, it's why you don't see females of a species engaging in a bit of 'rutting', that form of competition isn't in their genetic make-up, they're the winners 'prize', not the competitiors. It's that 'competiive spirit' which makes men far more inclined to become racers, technically they're rutting. I think the worst part of the BBC pushing their agenda is how little space Claire Williams has in column inches in relation to Wolff, one wonders what the agenda actually is, ignore the succesful one for the dolly bird that's not good enough so they can bitch about sexism.
That made me laugh on a number of levels! Your statement again completely shows the issues any woman has trying to get into F1 when some people have that mindset over the female form. How hard is an F1 car to drive these days though? The general view is they are not as physical as they used to be, therefore the physical differences that applied more so in the past probably no longer apply anymore. Interesting you look hard at the psychological differences. Can't say I agree on that, if women weren't competitive in their overall psyche, then none would play any form of sport or competition at all, let alone just F1. I find your argument bemusing on that front.
My thoughts exactly, football, hockey, netball... athletics... wrestling (all just a mens sport Miggins)? I don't understand whether he is trying to be funny, in which case he has been successful.
LOL, my argument is about why there are fewer women in the lower levels of motor-sport than men, but take whatever context out of it you like, and bold the bits that twist the rest, it just shows what your argument actually is. For the VAST MAJORITY OF WOMEN the inclination simply isn't there for physical competition, even less so when the physiological differences start to become more apparent with puberty. How many girls over 20 do you know that play sport compared to how many you know that don't? Yes SOME play those sports, but sporty women are far from the majority, how many female football teams are there compared to male? how many play football compared to men? How many women even WATCH sport compared to men? Although, tbh from your posts I'm not sure if either of you actually know any women that aren't family. It's funny, those sports you have chosen, none of them are unisex, and they're not unisex for a reason, it would discourage women from competing because men would dominate them. I'm not saying there wouldn't be any women in the upper echelons of them, I would've loved to see the Williams sisters taking on the men, I think they would've done extremely well because they had the power to compete. I think Arsenals former ladies captain, Faye White, could've played professionally against men, damn sight better than anyone I've played with, but they are the exception, only an extremely stupid person, brainwashed into disbelieving all the scientific and observational evidence of more than a million years, could possibly think it the rule. For the record, I would put my little sister up against anyone on here in a race, and at least one of my nieces, if not both, will start racing when they're old enough, but they have racing on both sides of the family.
Women were always going to be behind in sport compared to men as it wasnt long ago they were forbidden to actually play them. Walls are starting to break down and it wont be long before there is more parity. You mention The phycological impact that men have the upper hand in but you could say women natuarally have the upper hand in other areas such as Stamina and Weight which are benefits in F1. If there was ever a high profile sport where women and men could compete side by side then Motorsport is probably it
