W Series to hit the big time
2020: LAST TWO RACES IN WOMENS’ SERIES WILL BE STAGED ON FORMULA ONE WEEKENDS
F1 explains the move as one that promotes diversity and equality.
Things are still relatively quiet on the F1 front, but snippets of news do emanate and occasional significant items appear. One of the latter was the announcement linking the W Series with F1 weekends this year.
As South African Tasmin Pepper followers will know, the W Series is a single-seater racing discipline for women which commenced last year and ran a very successful season. This year, the cars will once again run on the same weekend as the DTM series, but the last two races of the eightround championship will be run on the Saturday before F1 events.
Those will be the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas
and one week later at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the Mexican Grand Prix.
Ross Brawn, Formula One managing director of motorsports and technical director, was reported as saying: “In just one year, the W Series has contributed significantly to increasing interest in the topic of diversity and inclusion in motorsport.
“We are convinced that our sport must offer equal opportunities for men and women to compete together. It is no coincidence that improving diversity of the F1 grid by supporting driver talent from under-represented backgrounds is one of our strategic objectives.”
So we once again see changes to the traditional F1 weekend by the introduction of another racing series.
Fair enough, but are we to assume that these very talented young women will be able to progress further and compete equally within the F1 championship, or are there still reservations as to whether a woman can handle such a car?
I trust equality becomes the norm for female race drivers, not just used as a way of boosting the all important public interest.
Talking of stirring public interest, stories emanating recently suggest it is not just the UK that is fast losing millions of television F1 fans. A similar phenomenon is apparently occuring in France.
Once again it is down to the wisdom of the gurus who have taken the decision to broadcast behind a so-called “pay wall”. This is likely to keep decimating the once incredibly strong fan base.