Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has firmly pushed back against critics who claim that women will not be able to compete against men in F1 in the future.
Coulthard has dismissed the notion that women lack the physical strength to compete at the highest level. The Scottish driver, a strong advocate of the all-female racing series F1 Academy and its predecessor W Series, co-founded More than Equal in 2022, an initiative aimed at combatting gender inequalities in motorsport.
Since the introduction of the W Series (2019) and F1 Academy (2023), these categories have been criticised for the goal of developing a female F1 driver in the future. However, during an interview with Daily Mail, Coulthard dismissed the idea that this is not possible. He explained:
“Of course it will happen. Without question.
“It’s utter bulls*** that women don’t have the strength to do it. Anyone who doesn’t train doesn’t have what it takes to perform in motor racing — whether you’re a man or a woman.
“An untrained person doesn’t have the strength to do anything. I’m 53 and I wouldn’t be able to drive an F1 car quickly for more than 10 laps in my physical condition, now that I’m on the other side of my peak fitness. I had to train like an athlete twice a day, with a trainer, for years to be able to do my job.
“One of the things I saw with the W series was that we took the best women available to try and qualify to become part of the championship — and some of them just weren’t fit enough. I looked at them, going: ‘What’s your excuse for not training? You have to present yourself as being serious as a pro and that means training like an athlete.’
“Therein lies the issue. There’s no physical reason they can’t do it. We know what it takes to be physically strong enough to be a racing driver and all of the data shows that women comfortably fit within that category of physical performance.”
David Coulthard, Red Bull Racing RB7 at Kyalami
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
The former Red Bull reinforced that raw talent, not gender, is what matters most.
“The main thing is, are the ones driving right now good enough to make it? It’s not an opinion. It will be based on lap times.
“Ultimately, it’s the stopwatch that dictates things.
“You can either do a fast lap time or you can’t. And, if that is the case, as I say to my son, you can join a long line of people with good excuses as to why they didn’t do a specific lap time — why this, why that. Sport is about delivery.
“It’s not my opinion that there will be a woman in F1, It’s just a fact, but I can’t tell you right now who that person is. I assure you that every single F1 team would sign someone up right now, if they thought they could get that person.”
Coulthard’s sister, Lynsay, who sadly passed away in 2013, also raced in karts when they were younger. However, as his career progressed, she wasn’t able to get the support needed to continue racing.
“My sister raced karts,” added Coulthard. “She was fast, talented, won races, but she was six years younger than me and started racing at eight.
“When I moved on to cars, I got signed to Paul Stewart racing, and was then tested for Williams at 18, 19 years old. We were then off on this magic carpet ride of European racing and, a few years later, I was an F1 driver. So she just never got the support. She eventually stopped racing.
“I spoke to her about it a lot and she never resented it at all. I just feel that she wasn’t given the same crack at it. I can’t say she would ever have been a Formula One driver — who knows? I can say, however, that she was talented enough to take that talent to some level of professionalism.
“So, my belief that women can compete in motor racing is based on personal experience — not on some sort of guilt or ideology.
“I’m invested in the growth of women in the sport in memory of my sister — who didn’t get to take the opportunities that I got, because the family couldn’t support us both. I got the momentum, I always think that she never got the chance, so I have invested time, effort and money not in any one individual, but in a new system and science-based programme to have more of a data-driven approach.
“I believe in the ability for women to compete on an equal level in motor racing, but we just haven’t had anyone who has had exceptional talent. It’s this desire to have the exceptional that drives the teams forward.”
Although initiatives like F1 Academy have helped female racers take monumental steps forward, there is still a long way to go before fans see a female driver on the F1 grid. F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff has previously claimed that we are likely still a decade away from that happening.
However, with the platforms now being created for female drivers, the mentality around women in motorsport is shifting—and it seems only a matter of time before Coulthard’s prediction becomes reality.
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