Is motorsport sexist? AUTOSPORT article http://plus.autosport.com/premium/f...sexist/?_ga=1.252270857.1273799173.1398675361 Their last line sums it up All that AUTOSPORT wants to see is that anyone is free to attempt to make it in motorsport and succeed or fail on their own merits. Whilst this is indeed true, it is hard to say that any female driver out there at the moment has shown themselves to be anything other than a match for mid-grid drivers in whatever series they are in. Yes, the odd win, pole and podium are taken but few are genuine title contenders. Much like the majority of males who are in motorsport. I am sure that if de Silvestro, Patrick or Wolff had the financial backing to 'buy' a seat on the grid like any other pay driver, then a team would take them. What is debatable is whether any of them could be hired on their driving talent alone? Wolff and de Silvestro have both demonstrated that they can handle an F1 car and post respectable lap times, but is that on it's own deserving of a seat?
I don't follow the junior categories as much as I used to so I don't know what the talent pool is like. I had a quick look at Beitske Visser and I think it typifies one of the main problems in the whole system. She was decidedly average in ADAC Formel Masters yet got a leapfrog drive all the way up to FR3.5. A look at those she competed with in ADAC and none of them are anywhere near that level of the racing pyramid. It just sends out the wrong message that talent is irrelevant and only serves to belittle any female driver who does get somewhere with talent. It should be fair and equal, neither positive or negative discrimination.
BBC's rolling sports page has asked who are sports worst losers. Out of four responses posted, 2 say Hamilton. Safe to say Benson is not in charge of that page
oh, not this 'motorsport is sexist' clap-trap again, it's simply because there isn't a woman good enough. Motorsport is prejudiced only against one demographic, the poor. Suzie Wolff being in F1 is sexist, if she were a man the closest she would get to driving an F1 car is on the PS4.
The problem with Motorsport is that it based on funding and contacts, regardless of the drivers gender. It is an elitist sport and the grass roots development of karting and entry level formula do nothing to prevent this - If anything it promotes it!
the funding buys the contacts, generally. That said, F1 is changing, the young driver programs run by the teams, especially Red Bull, have changed it a bit, each driver they seem to bring in appears to be better than the last. I'm fairly sure if there were a girl with the talent, she would be snapped up ASAP, a good female F1 driver would be a ****ing gold mine with a marketability that would appeal to 50% of the world population, unless she is sexy as hell and then it increases. To say giant corporations would pass up that opportunity is, quite frankly, moronic, you only have to look at the history of rallying to see how the car manufacturers clambered after women's teams for their marketability. Now with a far higher percentage of women driving, are they really going to pass up that opportunity? of course not, it's why the F1 teams are trying to find one, they want one so they can sell more cars, which is the reason they are in F1.
The financial implications affect the starting pool of talent. I agree that the Redbull driver programme has gone some way to developing talent but the issue is for each one they pick there are 100's who never got the opportunity.
It's certainly more a rich mans sport, but 'commoners' do make it from time to time, neither Brundle or Blundell could afford karting, Brundle did grass-track, which is probably the cheapest form of racing, the roll cages are worth more than the cars in the production classes, and Blundell was a council house dwelling motocross rider. I think it's probably even more kart-centric these days, and that isn't cheap, unmless your dad is a supplier, like John button.
But if F1 was easy, everyone would do it. It can't accommodate hundreds of drivers so there will always be loads who don't get the chance. A lot will end up in other premier category series though, but will always be the question as to whether they could have made it in F1 if they had got 'that break'. Hey hey, don't forget our Lewis. Stevenage slum lad done good and all that............. It's not like he ever mentions it either. Mansell was also from a normal background. This was the guy who mortgaged his house to get an F3 drive. Difference is massive these days though compared to Brundle/Blundell/Mansell days. Either you have to have money or just get lucky that out of all the fast youngsters our there you get talent spotted an signed up.
Hamilton drove around the country in a silver Winnebago racing, that isn't what poor people do, they stick the kart on the top of the family saloon.
In days gone buy there were other ways to get into F1 but not now. There are some great kids coming through the ranks but the reality is that it doesn't matter how good they are if they don't have the funding. I'm not going to mention names (because its not fair) but there are a couple of youngsters with very promising futures who have just switched form karting to single seaters, but their budgets in karting were 200k+ and they flew round Europe in private jets and arrived at tracks in helicopters. This doesn't mean that they are not good enough or that others are better, but it simply highlights that they have an advantage over other talent. British Championship karting is widely accepted as the highest talent pool which is why many foreigners race in it. You would be amazed at the budgets and what the families are prepared to spend for an advantage over a competitor, be it 3/1oths extra power or the fact that they are in the seat 4 days a week and never go to school - an entry level budget at this level would be 50K+ but the front runners are spending six figures. Then you have the new PR thing run by Bernie which is FKS - 50K for a junior for 8 rounds - and is promoted as the road to formula 1. The rich kid pays for it, has very little competition (because nobody can afford it and most of the big names are doing SuperOne or Europe - often there are single digit grids) and they are hailed as the next greatest British talent. The reality is they haven't raced against any talent, bought their performance and then been promoted by the PR of somebody's vanity project. The fact is that people in the know understand who are the good drivers and who are buying success, but the longer it goes on the more the talent gets overpowered by funding. A harsh reality I'm afraid.
Reality is 'poor' people don't go racing. You have to have some available money just to get out onto a karting circuit. Does Ron, Dr Bellend, Toto etc go round the local indoor kart track looking to see if anyone stands out on a crappy damp Tuesday evening? Mansell mortgaged his house to get out of karting, Hamilton snr ran up to 3 jobs at a time to pay Lewis to race. All risky stuff when ultimately neither could have made it up the ranks and just got bypassed in favour of another hot shot. Hamilton got lucky with his chance meeting with Dennis, Mansell got his break with Colin Chapman when many thought other British drivers deserved it more. Some 20 odd years apart these meetings took place, but shows there is still some luck to getting on the road to F1. Fact is, more people have failed to get to F1 despite being given these chances than those who have succeeded. How many more get cast aside despite being on these young driver programs because they never made the grade despite initial early promise?
I don't think the issue is with the past, the issue is with the current talent pool and their road to other formula. Lots of organisations have tried to do controlled one make series to negate the impact of money but they never take off - why? Two reasons; The kart teams charge a fee to provide an advantage over the competition, engines, kit, track time, driver coaching etc The people who are paying for an advantage wont compete in a 1 make controlled series. Until you go and visit a British championship round (I would recommend PF International at the end of September) people will never understand the problems with the sport. You wouldn't believe you were at a karting event, you would think it was an F1 test weekend! That's not a slight on Superone because John does a fantastic job running it, its slight on the teams and the big spenders.
How have the standards got so bad in that series? Didn't they cancel the Italian round part way through one of the races too? When you think some of todays F1 champions progressed through that series, really makes you wonder what F1 will be like in 5 years when some of this lot make it through with their bank balances in tow............
