Claire Williams: “Formula 1 is not a man's sport”

We can come to consider Formula 1 as one mirror of modern society where more and more women, despite what one might believe, are becoming part of its staff, especially as regards the administrative part. The female gender is looking with great authority to the premier class of Motorsport, especially if we look at the increasing presence of women in important positions both in the FOM offices and directly employed by the Formula 1 teams.

In response to the skepticism expressed by some professionals regarding the ability of women to coexist in a world originally made up of men, Claire Williams has hinted that she is quite disappointed with this situation which sees women always taking second place to their colleagues of the opposite sex: “There are many women who work behind the scenes and the viewers at home don't know it simply because they are not on camera. We have women mechanics, women engineers, women aerodynamicists – she commented to her colleagues at the Tagesspiegel – If we look at the situation of Williams, the 8% of our engineers are women. It seems like a small number, but this is not the case if we take into account that four years ago the percentage was close to zero."

Williams is certainly one of the Formula 1 teams most attentive to the issue, so much so that it was perhaps the first team that in 2011 hired a representative of the fairer sex, the driver Susie wolff, as a tester for the development work: “A lot of bad things have been said about this. It seemed that we had taken Susie only because of her, yes, her husband Toto Wolff (at the time a shareholder of Williams ed.) but if she hadn't been good, do you really believe that would we have kept it? We are a Formula 1 team and we have great ambitions – he continued – We will never put our future in doubt by signing a driver that doesn't deserve it because this would only hinder the achievement of our objectives”.

Eleonora Ottonello