Written by Chloé Cerisier
Women’s sports have experienced considerable advancements over time in many domains. However, Formula One has not witnessed such progress. The motorsport racing series is still predominantly male, owing to several factors, creating scarcer opportunities for women. In its 75 years of existence, Formula One has never seen a female driver compete for a full season, despite there being no rule that women cannot race alongside their male counterparts.
If you’re not familiar with Formula One, it consists of drivers competing across teams to win both the World Drivers Championship and the World Constructors Championship, as the season takes place from the end of February to the start of December, spanning across 21 countries all around the world.
Since the first Formula One race in 1950 at the Silverstone circuit, five female drivers have driven at a Grand Prix weekend, with only two ever qualifying for a race. The first woman on the list, Maria Teresa de Filippis, raced in 1958 and 1959, and competed in five races with Maserati and Behra-Porsche. Although she never scored any points in Formula One, she is viewed as a pioneer who overcame many barriers, and who went on to win numerous races and titles in other racing series. She then became the Vice-President of the International Club of Former F1 Grand Prix Drivers. Fifteen years later, Lella Lombardi entered the sport and raced in 17 Grands Prix from 1974 to 1976, scoring half a point in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. To this day, she remains the only woman to score a point in a Formula One race.
Three other women have tried to compete in the sport, but did not end up qualifying in the World Championship. The first one was Divina Galica, who entered one Grand Prix in 1976, and two in 1978, but failed to qualify for either. Then came Desire Wilson, who failed to enter the 1980 Grand Prix. However, she still competed in the 1978, 1979, and 1980 editions of the British Formula One Championship, and is the only woman to have actually ever won a Grand Prix. Finally, Giovanna Amati was the last woman to ever participate in a Grand Prix, when she entered three races of the 1992 World Championship, before being replaced by her team for another driver because of her lack of sponsorships.
Formula One has always been an unforgiving sport, where the margin for error is in milliseconds, and even the most talented drivers can be failed by mediocre equipment. For women, the challenges are compounded by other cultural and institutional biases. Securing sponsorship, crucial in motorsport, was especially difficult for female drivers, as teams were reluctant to take risks on women, and sponsors balked at the idea of investing in them. So, even when they did make it to the grid, female drivers found themselves in underperforming cars compared to their male counterparts and teammates. They constantly had to prove themselves and overcome the stereotypes they were subjected to. For example, in 1958, Maria Teresa de Filippis was straight up denied entry into the race by the race director for being a woman, despite there being no rule forbidding it. The director then stated, “The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s.” On top of their underpowered cars, underfunded teams, and limited opportunities, female drivers also had to cope with the pressure and scrutiny of the media and the public, often focused more on their appearance and personality than their potential and performance.
This is where the F1 Academy, run by Susie Wolff, comes into play. There had been previous all-female leagues such as Formula Woman in 2005, and the W series in 2019, however, both were discontinued due to financial issues. Founded in 2023, F1 Academy is the new female-only racing series for drivers aged 16 to 25, introduced as an entry point to get into Formula One. It offers 18 female drivers a platform to perform and secure a future in professional racing. Affiliated with top Formula One teams, these drivers compete across 14 races on iconic Formula One circuits for a funded seat in the following year’s Formula 3 GB3 Championship.
The F1 Academy helps drivers secure sponsorships and subsidizes $163,360 of each driver’s budget, with the teams contributing the remainder. Beyond competition, the Academy also partners with schools through the ‘Discover Your Drive’ program, aiming to inspire young girls and address the sport’s gender gap. In 2025, F1 Academy is being broadcasted across 160 international territories, and recently came to Netflix in the form of a docuseries. Following the launch of F1 Academy, there was an increase from 2.5% to 9% of girls competing in karting, which is where drivers get their start before the formula leagues.
Beyond drivers, an ESPN survey revealed the employment gap in technical and strategic positions in the teams. If 38% of Formula One Management’s 569 employees were female in 2021, data from teams is substantially lower but has been progressing in the past few years. From 2021 to 2024, McLaren Racing and Mercedes went respectively from 5% and 6% to 10% of their team’s technical employees being women. These statistics mirror a larger rise in the number of women studying motorsport engineering, with Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data showing they made up 9% of students on the course in the UK in 2023-2024, compared to 5% in 2019-2020. Therefore, even though these numbers remain low and barriers persist for women wanting to work in engineering, we are still witnessing some attempts at employing more women in the teams, and some working on the 2025 season are worth mentioning. Firstly, Haas, this year, has appointed the first-ever female race engineer, Lara Muller, who is working with Formula One driver Esteban Ocon this season. The team also appointed Carine Cridelich as their Head of Strategy. Among the other women working at notable positions, we can find Hannah Schmitz, Principal Strategy Engineer for RedBull since 2021; Rosie Wait, Mercedes’ Head of Race Strategy; and Jamie Chadwick, former champion of the W series, working as a driver ambassador for Williams. Still, women remain a marginal proportion of the racing and technical teams in Formula One.
Women are also involved in Formula One through fandom. Social media, the Netflix program Drive to Survive, F1: The Movie, and initiatives aimed to increase women’s involvement in the sport have helped raise interest among women. Last July, Formula One released its 2025 Fan Survey, which revealed a shift toward a young female fan base, with women accounting for three in every four new fans. Forbes now estimates women to represent over 40% of the total Formula One fanbase.
This trend is well understood by racing teams, who are now collaborating with brands like Charlotte Tilbury, La Roche Posay or Shark Beauty to appeal to this newfound audience. Just a couple of days ago, as Taylor Swift released her new album The Life of a Showgirl, many teams such as McLaren, Williams, and Mercedes went on TikTok to talk about the tracks or endorse its aesthetic.
Despite Formula One acknowledging and embracing this female fanbase, many of them still do not feel legitimate to call themselves F1 fans. Sexism and misogyny in the community are well-documented issues, with women often dismissed as being fans only because of the drivers’ looks, rather than for their genuine interest in the sport. For example, Christian Horner, former Red Bull Racing team principal, once said that Formula One is “bringing in a lot of young girls because of all these great-looking young drivers.”
Women do not like Formula One because the drivers are cute, or because their boyfriends taught them to love it, or because it’s some new trend. Women can like Formula One for the complex history of the sport, the engineering side of it, the commercial element of the sport, the physical science of training drivers, the strategic aspect of building a team, and so on. The history of women and the automobile is characterized from its earliest days by men deciding what they think women feel. Women were banned from various racing categories because they were considered emotionally unable to deal with the stress. They were ignored by auto companies when asking for safer cars, and instead were given the Dodge La Femme, a pink car that came with a matching handbag and lipstick holder. They are now ignored or ridiculed in the racing sphere because many men think girls actually don’t like sports. And it is time for these stereotypes to go.
While women’s presence in Formula One has for long been constrained by systemic barriers, cultural biases, and a lack of opportunity, recent developments indicate a slow, but meaningful shift. Initiatives like the F1 Academy, increasing female representation in technical and leadership roles, and a growing female fanbase all contribute to reshaping the sport’s landscape. Yet, genuine equality in Formula One will only be achieved when women’s passions, talent, and expertise are recognized as legitimate and indispensable to the sport, on and off the track. The road ahead remains challenging, but the growing momentum proves that women’s place in Formula One is not a question of possibility, but of persistence.
