Susie Wolff is sitting in a corner office in Formula 1 headquarters in central London, jumping between rooms as she doesn’t actually have a permanent desk here. As managing director of F1 Academy, the all-female racing series now entering its third season, she is in the capital to see the bosses. Wolff is notably relaxed and in good spirits as she discusses the series.
The night before our interview she had shown a few of the upper F1 management the first episode of the F1 Academy documentary, due for release later this year and shot by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine – a similar proposition to F1’s hugely successful Drive to Survive, with both showing on Netflix.
What fans will see when they watch is that the first two seasons have been a success, with the first in 2023 partly conducted behind closed doors, but last season’s championship run as an undercard series on F1 weekends. All 10 F1 teams now have involvement with the series and are taking it seriously. Lewis Hamilton was regularly spotted in the F1A paddock last year lending his support, and there was always a never-ending stream of fans passing through the area, which is far more accessible than F1’s own paddock.
F1 Academy’s own mission statement, as it were, points specifically to breaking down barriers for young girls and women in motorsport, but Wolff is never more than a question away from being asked when will the next female break into F1.
It is now nearly 50 years since a woman last competed in a world championship F1 race – Lella Lombardi back in 1976. Wolff herself took part in practice sessions for Williams during four F1 race weekends in 2014-15 but never landed a chance to start a race.
The F1 Academy managing director has previously been quoted as saying she thinks it will be eight to 10 years before we see a female in F1, a point she wishes she hadn’t made. “I kind of regret saying that because it makes the current drivers think that I don’t believe they can do it,” Wolff says. “And I don’t believe that. I see a lot of talent out there, and I see possibilities of young drivers that can make it. So, I definitely regret saying that, but we need to be realistic. There are only 20 spots on the grid in F1 and getting to the pinnacle of any sport is tough. But I still think it’s definitely possible.
“I think with the F1 teams now getting very focused on helping young drivers earlier, that’s going to play a big part in helping that timeline reduce.”
There is no doubt that all eyes within motorsport are focused on finding the next female F1 driver, and there is certainly plenty of talent out there moving in the right direction.
Last season’s F1 Academy champion, Abbi Pulling, received a fully-funded drive to race in the GB3 Championship this year with Rodin Motorsport as part of her prize. The 21-year-old has spoken openly of how the series gave her a lifeline, with funding having previously dried up just a few years ago.
Racing for Rodin, the Alpine Academy member dominated F1A, with nine wins from a possible 14, 10 pole positions and never once finishing off the podium, which all meant she claimed the crown by a whopping 121 points. And Pulling’s relationship with the Academy does not end with her championship.
The series has a talent development manager, Katie Denver, who will travel to some of the GB3 races with Pulling to support her.
It’s not just the champion who is moving onwards and upwards. Bianca Bustamante, who finished seventh in the Academy last season, will also compete in GB3 this year. Marta Garcia, who won the inaugural championship in 2023, now competes in GT racing with Iron Dames.
The talent development manager role is an interesting one. The Academy is building a database of all young female drivers who are competing globally in karting or single-seaters to help them find the talent coming up through the ranks.
The purpose, as Wolff puts it, is to ensure they “always have the best 18 on our grid”. It is this search that seems to be Wolff’s biggest concern and where she has focused a lot of her attention. It is a subject that crops up throughout the interview.
“I think [through] the exposure of F1 Academy, we have established ourselves as a destination for young female drivers,” Wolff says. “Bearing in mind a young female driver can’t get herself to a race track and can’t pay for a test or a karting season, it’s the parents who now see that there is a clear pathway of opportunity. And with the F1 teams and the brands that we have in the series, it’s something which is a huge thing of pride if you now make it to F1 Academy.
“You could be matched up with an incredible brand or with an F1 team. And if you’re good enough, the F1 team then might continue with you further up your career. And you see now some of the teams have also signed young girls who are already in karting and getting them ready for F1 Academy.
“So that’s had a huge impact. But we’ve also been very proactive in the world of karting. It’s my world.”
It certainly is Wolff’s world. An accomplished racing driver herself, she was the ideal pick for F1 to put in charge of the all-female racing series. During her two years in charge, she has worked to get all 10 F1 teams involved, and this will be the championship’s second season as a support series at F1 weekends – seven this year, including Las Vegas as the finale for the first time.
“For me, it was so clear I had to get the F1 teams on board, because of their knowledge and their power in junior categories of building drivers up,” she says. “I mean, that’s their business, that’s what they do.
“Last year, once I had the F1 teams on board, once I got with the F1 race weekends, my biggest worry was, where is the talent? And how are we nurturing the talent from a young enough age so that, by the time they get to F1 Academy, they’re ready for the opportunity and they’re going to grab it with both hands, and then the best will go onwards and upwards?”
The rules of the Academy mean that drivers can only compete for a maximum of two seasons, which gives Wolff the headache of having to ensure that there is always female talent coming through. Not an easy feat when only 10% of drivers globally are female.
“The rule of moving on after two years, I knew it was right because it gave up-and-coming drivers a chance,” Wolff says. “In the end, if you’ve had two seasons of F1 Academy, you have to move on. It put me in a very challenging position of ensuring there’s enough young girls coming up. But I wanted to challenge myself: if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it right.
“It cannot be that a winner just stays, or a top-six finisher just keeps racing in F1 Academy year after year. You need to move on. We’re not here to become a landing destination. We are the facilitator of maximising potential and making sure the talent goes onwards and upwards.”
Wolff spent 10 years of her racing career in karting and still has strong relationships that have opened doors for the Academy. As part of its plans to ensure a flowing pipeline of female talent, the series has partnered with Champions of the Future Academy Program, which starts to identify talent from as young as eight years old within karting across three mixed-gender categories: Minis (ages 8-11), Juniors (ages 11-14) and Seniors (ages 14+). For this season, the Seniors grid is 50% female.
“We worked with them primarily because they capped budgets and it works as an engine lottery, chassis lottery,” explains Wolff. “It takes away the whole question mark around which team you get into, how many engines you have, the whole spending war.”
The uptick in female participation in karting has already been nicknamed the ‘F1 Academy effect’. But what does success look like for the Academy? Is F1 the ultimate destination, or is success giving these women a professional racing career?
“Success is both,” Wolff replies without hesitation. “We all know how tough Formula 1 is. It has very limited opportunity.”
“It’s tough, male or female, to make it to the top. And I don’t believe in quotas. I don’t believe in a woman making it just because she’s a woman. If a woman’s going to make it to Formula 1, it’s because she’s good enough, because no team will take that risk. And I don’t think they should include someone in the car that’s not ready. So it’s up to us to unearth the talent and give them the opportunity, because I’m a big believer in getting chances in life.
“If we just give them the chance, the best will grab it and they will go with it. Whether that means they go on to be a GT driver, a World Endurance driver, a Formula E driver, that’s still a success for me. Any woman who’s in motorsport and turns around and says, ‘Well, I’m here because of F1 Academy’, that is a success story for me, because we’re changing the perception of the sport.”
But a female rising through the ranks to F1 is not just about opportunity. There is a physical element to it that cannot be ignored. A key issue that has been pointed to countless times is power steering. F1 has it. F2 and F3 do not. Wolff is in favour of introducing power steering in the junior categories but Bruno Michel, the F2 and F3 CEO, is against it.
“We will always agree to disagree,” reflects Wolff. “He doesn’t think F2 and F3 should have power steering. I absolutely believe they should have, but that’s not my decision to take, and we had many discussions over it. He feels that he’s moved the cars into a direction where it is more physically… I don’t want to use the word easier, but it is less challenging. But having driven an F1 car, I still think it’s not enough. I don’t understand why the junior formulas don’t replicate what it is they’re all aiming for, and that’s Formula 1, and Formula 1 has power steering.”
Could this be the barrier that stops women making it into F1? “I don’t think it’s a barrier that will stop them, but it is a big challenge,” answers Wolff. “Because if it’s tough for a male driver physically, we have 30% less muscle. And I wouldn’t be as frustrated by the situation if F1 didn’t have power steering, because then you need those muscles built up, and then it needs to be tough, because it’s tough the whole way.
“It’s just that for all the people that sit at a table and tell me, ‘Well, we’re doing this, we’re doing this’ – A, they’re not women, and B, they haven’t driven a Formula 1 car. But I respect that there’s a difference of opinions out there. I certainly just feel, having driven the car, it’s not the steering in F1 that’s a challenge.”
Wolff admits she has “gone to battle” on this topic, one she feels very strongly about.
“I think it is a battle, and I see it as my role running F1 Academy,” she says. “It’s not just about this series. It’s about the success of the young drivers that we’re supporting. Because it doesn’t count for anything if our drivers don’t go on to actually compete successfully in motorsport. And to compete successfully, you need to compete against men.
“That is this sport. So, if I would just be in my tunnel vision of making F1 Academy a success, I don’t think we’re building ourselves up for long-term success. We need to go down and get the next generation coming up, and we need to make sure that the most talented are moving up.
“So, I do go to battle on these things, because they’re really important for long-term success. I will always stand up when I believe very strongly in something. But in the end, there’s only so much I can do. And the rest comes down to the decision-makers in the sport deciding what’s right.”
Wolff certainly does stand up for what she believes in and has never shied away from taking the fight to the highest level. She has already pushed the boundaries within her own racing career and is now helping other young women forge theirs.
