MOTORSPORT: All-female racing sparks controversy

A new all-female open-wheeler race series is to start in Europe next year with the aim of becoming a springboard for a woman to make Formula 1 – and already there are plans for the series to expand to America, Asia and Australia.

Backing what will be called W Series, in which up to 20 women will drive 1.8-litre Formula 3 cars, are 13-time grand prix winner David Coulthard and the designer of F1 cars that have won 20 driver and constructor world championships, Adrian Newey.

But they have immediately run into opposition from prominent women in motorsport.

Pippa Mann (pictured), an Englishwoman who has raced six times in America’s Indianapolis 500, has called the creation of a separate category “a sad day for motorsport” and a “historic step backwards”.

Susie Wolff, a former F1 test driver now running a Formula E electric open-wheeler championship team, the Dare to be Different program and who is the wife of Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff, said “we should continue to encourage and create opportunities for women to compete on the same level as men”.

“The best opportunity to identify top female talent is by facilitating a dynamic where more women can compete and rise to the top in a mixed competition on equal terms,” she said.

Michele Mouton, a great rally driver in the 1980s who is now president of the world governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s Women in Motorsport Commission, said “the only way for females to benchmark their performance is to compete in a mixed environment”.

“While this new series is giving an opportunity for women to showcase their talent in a female-only environment, our objective is to have more of them competing alongside men and demonstrating they have the same ability and potential to succeed in top-level FIA championships,” she said.

However, Jamie Chadwick, who in August became the first woman to win a British F3 race, welcomed Formula W as “a fantastic opportunity for top female talent to race and it will also encourage many more young females to enter the sport”.

“I will still race against men in other championships, but W Series is the perfect supplement to help me develop and progress further,” she said.

Coulthard said motorsport’s existing structure had “not worked” in finding a top woman driver.

The last of the two women to race in F1 was the late Italian Lella Lombardi in the mid-1970s.

“If you want a fundamental change in the outcome, you need a fundamental change in the process,” Coulthard said.

“W is a fundamental change in creating an opportunity to bring through female talent to the highest possible level.”

Newey, the Red Bull F1 designer who was with McLaren and Williams when they were top teams, said it was “a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of capability” that had held back women racers.

The cars in the series will be identical and be provided and run by the championship. There will be a $US1.5 million ($A2.1 million) prize pool, with $US500,000 to the winner.

Coulthard said the first season would have six 30-minute races at European tracks which have hosted GPs.

“In forthcoming seasons the W Series schedule is set also to include races in America, Asia and Australia,” he said.

It will be run by British sports lawyer and corporate financier Catherine Bond Muir, who reportedly has provided the initial funding for the series.

Anticipating opposition from leading women in the sport to a separate series, the organisers said in the announcement: “At the heart of W Series’ DNA is the firm belief that women can compete equally with men in motorsport.

“However, an all-female series is essential in order to force greater female participation. W Series is therefore a mission-driven competition, the aim of which is not only to provide exciting racing for spectators and viewers on a global scale, but also to equip its drivers with the experience and expertise with which they may progress their careers, racing and honing their skills in W Series before eventually graduating to existing high-level mainstream racing series.”

Bond Muir said the series would “increase the number of women competing in single-seaters very significantly in 2019, thereby powerfully unleashing the potential of many more female racing drivers”.

“W Series drivers will become global superstars – inspirational role models for women everywhere – and every organisation, every company, every sponsor and indeed every single person who helps W Series’ winners and champions achieve those ground-breaking successes will be able to celebrate their part in it, publicly, to lasting worldwide acclaim,” she said.

“W Series is an inspiring innovation whose time is now.”

Toyota, already set to win the manufacturers’ title in its second year back in the World Rally Championship, will add five-time WRC event winner Kris Meeke to its driver line-up next year.

Although not officially announced yet, Meeke – who was dropped by Citroen in May for crashing too much – will partner Estonian ace Ott Tanak and Finn Jari-Matti Latvala.

Esepekka Lappi, the younger Finn driving for the Tommi Makinen-run Toyota team this year, is headed for Citroen next season along with five-time – and perhaps by then six-time – world champion Sebastien Ogier.

Frenchman Ogier and Hyundai’s Belgian Thierry Neuville are vying for this year’s drivers’ title, with Tanak – winner of three recent rallies and clearly fastest in Wales last weekend but scuttled by a broken radiator – still a chance.

There is only the round in Catalunya, Spain, at the end of this month before the finale, Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour on November 15-18.

Plans for Japan to return to the WRC calendar next year for the first time since 2010 have been dropped, which will be a big disappointment to Toyota as it had worked hard to get a round back in its homeland.

A 14-round calendar is expected to be endorsed at a meeting today of the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

Meanwhile, one of Australia’s leading rally drivers, Steve Glenney, will compete in a Skoda Fabia R5 like national championship leader Eli Evans at Rally Oz.

Glenney crashed the Subaru Impreza WRX STi he has driven this year at the previous ARC round in the Adelaide Hills and he and co-driver Andy Sarandis will only get to test the Skoda at Coffs Harbour in the week of the event.

Evans goes into Rally Oz on 310 points, Toyota driver Harry Bates 281 and Glenney 273.

Australia’s international Porsche racer Matt Campbell has to “carry” extra weight at this weekend’s World Endurance Championship round at Fuji in Japan.

The four Porsche 911 RSRs in the LMGTE Am category for the event will race with 10kg more while the two Aston Martin Vantages have an extra 5kg. The weight of the three Ferrari 488s in the category is unchanged.

Campbell and his co-drivers, German Christian Ried and Frenchman Julien Andlauer, lead the category standings with 76 points – 33 more than their nearest rivals.

In the top WEC category, LMP1, Toyota’s two TS050 Hybrids – one of them with Fernando Alonso in its driver line-up – have an extra 26kg this weekend.

In GTE Pro, BMW’s M8s have been allowed a 20kg weight reduction, a turbo boost pressure increase and a two-litre increase in fuel capacity, while the Ford GTs – like that Ryan Briscoe demonstrated at Bathurst last weekend – will carry 18kg more and have less boost and Porsche 911 RSRs 2kg more and a 0.3mm smaller air restrictor.

Aston Martin will replace Mercedes in the German touring car championship, the DTM, next season against Audi and BMW.

Long-time Mercedes partner HWA will develop, build and run the Aston Martin Vantages in association with R-Motorsport, which already works with AM in sports car racing.

Mercedes is pulling out of the DTM as it prepares to enter the Formula E electric open-wheeler series.

The DTM and Japan’s Super GT series now have similar rules. Almost half the DTM races are now outside Germany.

DTM boss Gerhard Berger said that Aston Martin’s entry could entice more manufacturers.

“This decision of a luxury sports car manufacturer such as Aston Martin is a historic event for our series and a milestone for the international orientation of DTM,” Berger said.