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.

RacingNews365 was very honoured and privileged to host a true legend of #F1 in our latest Podcast as three-time champion Sir Jackie Stewart joined myself and @NickGoldingF1E to discuss many aspects of the sport.https://t.co/9BL3cS4OQo

— Ian Parkes (@ianparkesf1) September 30, 2024

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.