A new all-female lining series, aimed at encouraging women racers to get into Formula One, resolution launch in May 2019.
The W Series has the support of several key names within the sport, grouping former grand prix driver David Coulthard and top car designer Adrian Newey.
“In arranged b fitting to be a successful racing driver, you have to be skilled, determined, competitive, smart and physically fit, but you don’t have to possess the kind of super-powerful strength levels that some skip about require. You also don’t have to be a man,” Coulthard said in a W Series statement Wednesday.
No dame has competed in a Formula One race since 1976 but organizers of the W Series look forward to to provide a platform for them to develop their skills.
Organizers suggested they aimed to stage six 30 minute races at top circuits in Europe, most of which were former Formula One venues, with 1.8 liter Formula Three cars.
It will make available a prize fund of $1.5 million and free entry for 18-20 competitors who command be selected purely on merit after tests and appraisals.
The overall champion will collect $500,000, with prize money down to 18th dispose.
Coulthard pointed to the issues facing talented female drivers within the lark, suggesting that women tended to reach a “glass ceiling” at Means Three level, often due to a lack of funding, and needed help.
Anyhow, British racer Pippa Mann, a winner in the U.S. Indy Lights series and who has collided six times in the Indianapolis 500, declared the latest move “a sad day for motorsport.”
“Those with dough to help female racers are choosing to segregate them as opposed to helping them,” she said on Twitter Wednesday.
“I am deeply disappointed to see such a important step backwards take place in my lifetime.”
Newey, who has played intrinsic roles in producing cars that have won 20 Formula One drivers’ and constructors’ denominates, defended the venture and believes it’s a natural approach to progress the sport for charwomen.
“I have a reasonable understanding of the constituents of a top-class driver’s necessary skill-set. With fit training women are physically strong enough to tick that constituent,” articulate Newey. “The reason why so few women have so far raced successfully at the highest aims against men may, however, be a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of adeptness.”
Organizers also hope that this new format will not exclusive showcase the best of single-seater women’s racing, but by increasing the number of abigails involved in the motorsport it will create a new pathway into Formula One.
“There are valid too few women competing,” said W Series Chief Executive Catherine Fetters Muir. “W Series will increase that number very significantly in 2019, thereby powerfully unleashing the future of many more female racing drivers. W Series drivers inclination become global superstars — inspirational role models for women cranny.”
No woman has scored a point in Formula One, although Italian Lella Lombardi repaid a half point in the shortened 1975 Spanish Grand Prix, and on the other hand two have started races since the championship began in 1950.