Sir Jackie Stewart Believes F1 ‘Needs Women’ Drivers and Suggests Solutions to Achieve Gender Diversity

Sir Jackie Stewart Believes F1 ‘Needs Women’ Drivers and Suggests Solutions to Achieve Gender Diversity

There has been a lot of debate around onboarding more female drivers in the sport with the eventual goal of getting them into F1. In a recent interview, three-time world champion, Sir Jackie Stewart discussed this with his own ideas about how the sport can get its first full-time female F1 driver.

Stewart began by explaining that men don’t really have a physical edge over women when it comes to motorsport. Moreover, the only way of building a talent pool of young racing drivers is to start from the grassroots level — and the same applies to female drivers.

He began by saying that in his mind the sport needs more women drivers. “There is no reason why a woman can’t be in Formula 1. Not at all. Nothing to do with physique or anything else,” he explained to RacingNews365.com.

Discussing the reason why the sport lacks female drivers, however, Stewart said, “But they don’t of to karting as much as little boys do. Little girls are doing other things generally.” That said, he did acknowledge that karting is an expensive hobby but that is just the way it has always been.

The 85-year-old believes that if younger women are encouraged to take up racing there is no reason why they can’t achieve success like the big names in the sport today have — as he highlighted the example of Lewis Hamilton.

Stewart highlights Hamilton’s journey to encourage gender diversity in F1

The F1 Academy has been a great proponent of showcasing that there is a great pool of young female racers who can compete at the highest level of open-wheel racing. According to Stewart, all these drivers are the product of a stellar karting career.

Touching upon how expensive the sport can be, he urged a look at Hamilton’s humble beginnings. Hamilton’s father, Anthony Hamilton worked four jobs to ensure his son could go karting. Today, Hamilton is arguably the most successful F1 driver of all time with 105 wins and seven world titles to his name.

With stars like Doriane Pin and Abbi Pulling making a name for themselves, Stewart looks into the future of the sport claiming that it isn’t going to be long before F1 has its first female world champion, too.

Post Edited By: Aishwary Gaonkar
Sir Jackie Stewart

About the author

Anirban Aly Mandal

Anirban Aly Mandal is an F1 writer at The SportsRush, with over 1000 articles under his belt, Anirban's love for F1 started when he discovered a copy of F1 2014 on his computer. With over half a decade's worth of time spent religiously following the sport, he’s dived deep into the world of motorsports. However, Anirban's expertise goes beyond just writing - he has also written several academic papers focused on the domain of motorsports and the law. His passion for the sport is so immense that he aspires to work as a legal advisor in the most prestigious racing series in the world someday. When it comes to Formula 1, Anirban finds great pleasure in re-watching classic races and idolizes the likes of Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, and Sebastian Vettel. His top picks include Brazil '91, Silverstone '92, and Germany '19. Outside of the sport, Anirban is an avid sim racer, often found racing on titles like Assetto Corsa, F1 22, and Automobilista. Apart from his interests in gaming, Anirban has a keen interest in philosophy, literature and music.

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