F1 Academy: Is Formula 1 finally taking women seriously?

A pistillate operator hasn't competed successful a Formula 1 expansive prix since 1976. Only past twelvemonth the sport's CEO said helium couldn't spot that changing successful the adjacent 5 years. But are they yet taking women earnestly with the instauration of the caller F1 Academy?

There are nary rules preventing women from competing against men but a deficiency of backing is often blamed arsenic a crushed we don't spot immoderate making it to the grid.

It tin outgo hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to sponsor a young racer done an F3 play - mode earlier you're adjacent adjacent to the higher illustration F1.

To effort and alteration that, the athletics has launched a caller all-female racing class called the F1 Academy - with 15 women competing crossed 5 teams.

The bid volition spot F1 subsidise the outgo of each car with a fund of £130,000 and the drivers volition person to lucifer that full with their ain backing.

The contention docket has been announced - with Austria the determination for the archetypal contention successful April, and a play finale pencilled successful alongside Formula 1's play successful Austin, Texas.

It's not the archetypal all-female driving championship, with the free-to-enter W Series created successful 2019 removing fiscal barriers to competing.

But some, including Sir Lewis Hamilton, person felt it doesn't connection capable progression for pistillate drivers - due to the fact that it was abstracted from F1.

And the bid has faced wealth troubles, with the erstwhile play ending 3 races aboriginal and fundraising presently taking spot for the 2023 season.

So volition the caller F1 Academy pb to a pistillate operator lining up against Sir Lewis connected the starting grid successful the adjacent future?

One idiosyncratic hoping for that is 19-year-old Abbi Pulling who's already been making waves successful British Formula 4 arsenic good arsenic the all-female W Series.

She told Newsbeat the caller F1 Academy could interruption down the barriers for women getting into the sport.

"I've been progressive successful motorsports since I was 8 years aged and the terms conscionable goes up and up the further you go," she says.

"So it ends up making it rather hard to really extremity up affording [to go] up and ends up being much wealth driven than endowment driven.

"I deliberation it's thing that needs to beryllium addressed and it is being addressed. They're providing opportunities to women that couldn't spend going into the championships."

Abbi, who's from Spalding successful Lincolnshire, has signed for the Rodin Carlin squad and is simply a subordinate of the Alpine Academy operator programme - which produced existent F1 stars Oscar Piastri and Guanyu Zhou.

She says being portion of the squad should springiness her a bully accidental astatine processing her racing career.

But what does she marque of the sport's purpose of getting women racing successful an F1 expansive prix wrong a decade?

"I deliberation it's decidedly doable," she says.

"It's going to instrumentality a batch of hard work, particularly if it's to beryllium me. I've got to get physically fitter and things similar that.

"And if it's not me, I privation it to beryllium the adjacent generation. I privation idiosyncratic to interruption that barrier."

Jess Edgar is 17, and 1 of the archetypal drivers to beryllium signed up for the F1 Academy.

"As soon arsenic I heard astir the series, the backing of Formula 1 and the teams and radical involved, I was highly keen to beryllium portion of this archetypal historical season," she tells Newsbeat.

"It's not conscionable astir being fast. It's astir being accordant and making the close strategical decisions."

Jess hopes the all-female bid volition animate different young girls who privation to commencement racing.

"There were decidedly times erstwhile I felt similar an outsider successful the racing world, but I utilized that arsenic substance to beryllium myself," she says.

"I don't privation to beryllium seen arsenic a pistillate driver, I conscionable privation to beryllium seen arsenic a driver.

"I deliberation it's important for young girls to spot that thing is imaginable if you enactment hard and judge successful yourself," she adds.

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