Why is F1 still waiting for next female driver? Lando Norris gives two clear reasons

Lando Norris has suggested that the participation numbers of young women taking part in motorsport means it is less likely a female driver will make it to Formula 1.

While initiatives like F1 Academy’s Discover your Drive and the Champions of the Future Academy Program seek to get more young girls into karting, for the time being at least the ratio is still heavily weighted towards men.

Norris has suggested that is why there is no female driver currently competing in the incredibly exclusive Formula 1 club.

Lando Norris says lack of women in F1 is down to statistics

Norris, who himself enjoyed a successful karting career from 2008 to 2014, is one of just 20 drivers on the current F1 grid and he suggested the reason why women are not in the sport is simply down to statistics.

“The big question a lot of people ask me, and ask us as racing drivers, is why is there no girl or woman in Formula 1?” Norris told the TODAY programme.

“There’s two points. One is for anyone to be in Formula 1, it’s probably like a 0.000% shot. I don’t know what the odds are but it’s extremely, extremely slim for anyone to get to Formula 1. There’s 20 spots.

“It’s not like football where there’s 30 different teams and you can all become part of these teams. It’s just 20 drivers in the world and that’s it. There’s millions of people who are trying to get into it so for anyone to get there, it’s extremely difficult.”

But there are plenty of barriers to getting into Formula 1 most notably the cost with families expected to pay tens of thousands of pounds just to compete at a lower level.

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Norris, whose father is the 610th richest person in Britain as per the Sunday Times’ annual Rich List, remarked that for every 10 girls trying to get into F1, there are 100,000 guys.

“The second point is just the amount of girls who are getting into motorsport is nowhere near the volume of guys,” the McLaren driver said. “So then when you look at the chance of 100,000 guys and then maybe one gets into Formula 1 and for every 100,000 guys, it’s maybe like 10 girls.

“So for a chance for girls to get into Formula 1, it’s so unlikely just because of those odds, not because of a lack of talent or anything like this.

“So the main thing is just trying to push more girls and women to get into the sport in the first place and starting karting and work their way up, and just have more of them get in and eventually one of those girls will be a Formula 1 driver at some point.”

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