Meet the girls pushing to become future F1 stars

It has been astir 50 years since pistillate operator Lella Lombardi competed successful a Formula 1 contention and since then… nothing.

As the athletics celebrates its 75th day this year, the question lingers heavily: Can a pistillate marque it to the apical successful this male-dominated world?

More Than Equal - an organisation co-founded by ex-F1 operator David Coulthard - thinks it is imaginable and successful concern with Manchester Metropolitan University is putting six promising young racers done a operator improvement programme, tailor-made to maximise their potential.

Last month, the inaugural radical of girls, aged 13 and 14, took portion successful carnal investigating and probe into however the menstrual rhythm tin impact performance. More Than Equal hopes the programme volition hole participants for a palmy vocation successful motorsport.

"At the infinitesimal we're successful a spot of laboratory phase," Tom Stanton, More Than Equal's interim main enforcement and caput of operator development, tells BBC Sport.

"We've acceptable thing up that we judge is satellite people and is going to assistance america larn astir the improvement requirements and trajectory of young pistillate drivers."

The girls' sojourn to the university’s Institute of Sport progressive a VO2 Max trial - which measures however overmuch oxygen a idiosyncratic tin usage portion exercising - cervix spot grooming and cognitive assessments, each cardinal metrics for anyone hoping to go an F1 driver.

Driving astatine precocious speeds with precision and accomplishment is different constituent prioritised connected the programme.

"What we are present to bash is to assistance marque the girls conscionable a small spot much technically astute, a small spot much professionally alert and much physically capable,” Stanton adds.

A study by More Than Equal , externalfound a deficiency of female-specific grooming was conscionable 1 of the obstacles women look erstwhile trying to find a spot successful Formula 1.

The contented is not conscionable circumstantial to motorsport and galore sports are present taking enactment to effort to item the struggles, for lawsuit assessing the interaction periods, gestation and menopause tin person connected a top-level athlete.

A BBC Sport survey of elite British sportswomen past twelvemonth recovered astir two-thirds of respondents said their performance was affected by their period, oregon that they person missed grooming oregon contention due to the fact that of their period.

Kirsty Elliot-Sale, prof of pistillate endocrinology and workout physiology astatine the Institute of Sport, believes data-driven, science-backed probe into menstrual cycles could beryllium "game changing" for women's sport.

"It's truly large to spot immoderate attraction and spotlight due to the fact that each athletics is different," says Elliot-Sale. "We don't cognize a lot, but I warrant we're going to larn truly quickly.

"If we're reasoning astir pistillate challenges and say, ovarian hormones and menstrual cycles, whilst each pistillate athletes mightiness person that successful common, the situation that they are placed in, the grooming and fuelling demands, determination volition beryllium nuances and differences."

Elliot-Sale hopes the programme tin supply the girls with acquisition and enactment truthful they person a amended knowing of however to navigate each signifier of their cycle.

"In a mode that is levelling up due to the fact that men don't look immoderate of these challenges," she adds.

"Rather than look astatine these girls and accidental you mightiness person to beryllium this 1 out, we tin assistance with this and suddenly, for the contention calendar, you've got that aforesaid freedom."

The main obstacle for anyone trying to participate F1, beryllium they a antheral oregon a woman, is money. Wealth speaks loudly successful the paddock and, arsenic Stanton points out, it is 1 of the fewer sports "where your fiscal capableness is arsenic important arsenic your talent".

But with women making up connected mean lone astir 10% of those successful motorsport and galore sponsors unwilling to instrumentality a accidental connected adjacent the champion pistillate drivers, the deficiency of accidental means the physiological demands of a modern F1 run connected a woman's assemblage are inactive unknown.

While Coulthard believes determination is nary carnal crushed a pistillate cannot vie successful F1, a VO2 Max test, for example, shows a male's people is typically astir 20% higher than a female's with the aforesaid fittingness level.

Stanton says it would beryllium remiss if the improvement programme did not comparison the 2 sexes.

"When we bash our endowment identification, we look astatine however they stack against the existent field, which is boys and girls. We past look astatine the pistillate tract and effort and summation an knowing of however they look there," helium added.

"We effort to flip that lens each present and again to spot it from some sides."

When it comes to competing against boys successful karting, Lana Flack, from Australia, and Skye Parker, from Trelogan, Wales, cognize first-hand however hostile events tin beryllium erstwhile the sexes are mixed and girls are winning.

Lana, 13, recovered herself the unfortunate of sabotage erstwhile she was heading for title glory, portion Skye, 14, - who has besides been selected arsenic portion of the FIA’s Girls connected Track programme - was told "this is wherefore women shouldn't race" portion being wrongly accused of taking different operator out.

They anticipation that with enactment they volition beryllium capable to interruption down barriers similar this to fulfil their ambitions.

"My large imagination is to beryllium a aggregate F1 satellite champion," Parker says. "But I person to get 1 first."