Interview – Wolff wants women to dare to be different

By Alan Baldwin

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – Former Williams test driver Susie Wolff expects to see a woman racing with the men in Formula One eventually but her main focus now is to encourage and highlight female involvement in motorsport as a whole.

Unveiling a ‘Dare to be Different’ initiative at the Autosport show on Thursday, the 33-year-old Scot told Reuters that she wanted to see more women chasing their dreams on and off the track.

“We are creating role models from the successful women who are in the sport already,” she said. “My fundamental aim is to drive female talent — it’s not just to find the next female Formula One superstar.

“If they come from our search, then great. But ‘Dare to be Different’ is something in the long term that just aims to inspire, connect and showcase women in motorsport.”

The scheme, run in conjunction with Britain’s MSA motorsport authority, will create an online community and organise special events, including karting, for eight to 14-year-old girls to meet female high achievers in the sport.

Only two women have taken part in a Formula 1 race since the world championship began in 1950.

Italian Maria Teresa de Filippis, who died on Saturday at the age of 89, was the first, starting three grands prix in 1958 at the wheel of a Maserati.

The last to do so was Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976. She died in 1992.

ROLE MODELS

Wolff, who has now definitively retired from all forms of racing, said she was sure there would be another F1 woman racer in her lifetime but it was all about nurturing talent and taking a long term view.

“You’ve just got to get a girl that’s good enough to perform on track and she will have the opportunity,” she said. “For me, it’s about giving back, it’s about passing on the lessons I learned and helping in what way I can.

“I’m not focusing on changing the sport,” she added when asked whether she felt a need to chip away at any entrenched male attitudes. “I am focusing on being successful in the sport as it is.

“My husband (Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff) is of the generation where he realises that women are just as capable as men. He has some key players in his team that are women,” she added.

“So the next generation realise that they’ve got to be diverse to make sure they have the best people for the job.”

Wolff, who in 2014 became the first woman driver in 22 years to take part in a Formula One grand prix weekend when she drove in Friday practice at Silverstone, said more women needed to get involved at an early age and to have role models to emulate.

“I want to create role models out of the fantastic women who are working in the sport,” she said.

“People keep telling me that it’s male dominated but a lot of the people I worked with at Williams were women. And they were there because they were the best people for the job. Your gender becomes irrelevant when you are in a performance-based environment.

“My boss at Williams was a woman (deputy principal Claire Williams) and the head of performance is a woman. When I was driving the simulator, out of the three engineers I worked with one was a woman.

“So it was very difficult for me to turn around and tell people that I worked in a male-dominated environment, because it wasn’t.

“We want to get more women into the sport, whether that be marshals, volunteers, engineers, female racing drivers. We want to open up the sport and show there’s opportunities out there.”

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)