Susie Wolff: ‘F1 is not a man's world anymore'

Independent

2 days ago

From a coastal upbringing in the west Scottish town of Oban and first racing in a go-kart at the age of eight, Susie Wolff has, at 42, just about seen it all in motorsport. A racing CV that includes stints in Formula Renault, Formula Three, the sports car series DTM and a trailblazing F1 test drive at Williams have been bookended post-retirement with executive roles at Mercedes and the Formula E team Venturi.
But her latest venture is her true passion; some might say her life's work.
Wolff is now managing director at the all-female racing series F1 Academy, a competition tasked with finding the next generation of top-quality female racers. Ultimately, the target – by the end of the decade – is for a woman to land a full-time seat in F1. By next year, a woman will have not started an F1 race for half a century, with the last instance being Lella Lombardi's appearance at the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix.
When first launching F1 Academy, which now has the backing of all 10 teams and will race on the cards of seven different grands prix this year, Wolff said a woman on the grid was eight to 10 years away. Two years on, ahead of F1: The Academy launching on Netflix, she has not changed her forecast.
'I think about how much we've achieved in a short space of time,' Wolff tells The Independent, in Netflix's plush central London offices. 'The amount of young girls I see at karting tracks, the level we see in F1 Academy. It fills me with a lot of hope for the future.
'I know how tough Formula One is, it's 20 spots on the grid regardless of gender. It's tough. But you've got to hope that with the amount of female talent we're promoting, there has to be one girl that's good enough to be given the opportunity.'
Wolff has fought this fight for some time. In 2014, with her appearance in a free practice session at the British Grand Prix, the Scot became the first woman to participate in an F1 weekend since 1992. She drove three more times in practice sessions over two years, and on one occasion, in Germany, recorded a time just two-tenths of a second off her teammate, the star Brazilian driver Felipe Massa.
By the end of 2015, Wolff retired. She'd gone as far as she could go.
But in the decade since, Wolff has seen a sport and a paddock keen to modernise. There are more women in F1 teams than ever before, whether in garages, communications or events. Support-wise, too, largely as a result of Netflix's Drive to Survive series, 42 per cent of the F1 fanbase is now female, with 18-24-year-old women being the fastest-growing demographic.
'I see the change, it's happening before my eyes,' Wolff says.
'The paddock has so many more women, in different roles and functions, but also because the world is changing – the sport has evolved with it. We can't rest on our laurels, but I do think we're heading in the right direction.
'If F1 Academy can inspire the next generation to realise that this is not a man's world anymore, we will have a lot of positive impact. I see how far we've come in a short space of time, we're challenging perceptions. We've got a lot of momentum.'
Wolff exudes a relentless self-confidence in her words. Persuasive and articulate, she is married to Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff and is extremely well respected by her peers in the paddock. It is, after all, in the sport's best interests for a female driver to succeed and thrive in the years to come.
However, as Wolff notes in the new docu-series with a powerful statement in the opening episode – 'we want to be more than just a moment, we want to be a movement' – a woman on the grid is not the be-all and end-all. 'Everyone presumes that our metric of success is if we get a girl to Formula One … no, that is not why we exist,' she explains.
'We want to open up the sport to challenge the perception that people think it is still a man's world. We've got the audience out there who are starting to engage with and love the sport. It's about just taking that momentum and creating long-term success.'
Challenging the norm is the fulcrum of Wolff's vision. On International Women's Day in March, F1 Academy and Wolff (with a combined Instagram following close to two million) posted a powerful video of the drivers rallying back against misogyny and abuse online.
'It was made tongue in cheek, but it was a moment to realise how far we've come,' Wolff reflects, on a campaign suitably titled 'acclerating action.'
'For all you naysayers, all you that say women don't belong in sport, that women are not good enough as drivers... well, we're not just talking about it, we're doing it. Actions speak louder than words. It was more a way to challenge these outdated perceptions and views.'
Wolff has overseen a transition from F1 Academy's opening weekend in 2023, which took place in front of a sparse crowd in Austria, to this year's season concluding on the streets of Las Vegas in November.
Abbi Pulling, last year's dominant champion, is this year racing in the GB3 Championship – effectively a rung below F3 – in a fully funded drive. Wolff is watching the 22-year-old British driver's progress in 2025 with an optimistic eye.
Yet, presently, all Wolff's goals are lasered in on the growth of women in motorsport, from karting all the way up to the single-seaters. The premiere of a Drive to Survive -esque docu-series on Netflix, with seven 45-minute-long episodes giving a behind-the-scenes look at those in the cockpit and beyond, is another feather in her cap.
'I knew it was going to be hugely important... to get that wider audience and change the perception of the sport,' she says.
'I live in a world that's very objective. Your race results, your business results, but when the first edits came through it was a very subjective conversation, because everyone's got an opinion and you can only really judge or put your opinion on the table.
'But I'm really proud of what we ended up with. I think we hit a very good balance between telling the story of the drivers, making it about the racing and not making it too flowery and girly, because it's still a tough environment – the sport is still tough.'
Nobody, it seems, is better equipped to take on this sturdiest of challenges. 'I've spent my life in this sport, it's where my network is,' she says. 'I know what it's like to be an eight-year-old on a race-track and in an F1 car.
'I also know from a business perspective what this series needs to make it a success long-term. The results? They'll speak for themselves.'