Claire Williams highlights F1’s lack of female leaders: ‘I don’t get it’

Claire Williams, who led the Williams Formula 1 team from 2013 to 2020, has spoken about the lack of female representation in the sport.

She is just one of two women to have managed teams in the sport – the first being Monisha Kaltenborn, who previously held the position of team principal for the Sauber F1 team.

During an appearance on the F1 Beyond The Grid podcast, Williams spoke about the importance of having more women in motorsport. She explained:

“It’s not a case of there not being women out there that can run a Formula 1 team—and jeez, if I can run a Formula 1 team, anyone can, quite honestly. I don’t get it.

“When I am asked that question—and I am—I still go out and talk to students, and they ask me that: why? I have no answer, because I absolutely believe that there are women out there who are perfectly capable.

“I don’t know what it is, but I do think it’s a shame. Because, as much as there’s all this brilliant work promoting female drivers, I would love to see another female team principal. And I think it’s really important—you do turn on the telly and still see a sport that is very male-dominated, because the TPs, the drivers—they’re all men.”

The 48-year-old continued, referring to the work by multiple people to increase the female representation in Formula 1. One of the biggest initiatives is the Susie Wolff-led F1 Academy, which now works in close collaboration with F1.

“There’s been a huge amount of work that’s been done over the past 10-15 years in this space, and you are only going to get or see the repercussions, the reward of that hard work in a generation. It’s not a work of a moment, this kind of stuff. It takes a long time in order to see change because you need to get the critical mass at the grassroots level if you’re going to see change.

“And we haven’t had that yet. I still don’t see many five or six-year-old girls, and I’ve got a seven-year-old son, so I know that the girls in his cohort aren’t asking their parents to go go-karting on a Saturday afternoon, whereas the boys might. What I am seeing, though, which is brilliant, is much more teenage girls falling in love with Formula 1.

“So therefore, whatever that generation is, the 15-16-year-old girls, you might see them stepping up into the more administrative business-type roles and therefore taking the TP roles later on.”