Jamie Chadwick - First competitive female driver in F1?
Discussion
LukeBrown66 said:
I have seen it myself in very hard short oval races where women do not just win, they dominate fully, so again, total nonsense.
But this isn't about can women compete in lower formulas and win, where the spread of ability/approach/budget/available time etc is wider. The fundamental question here is can a woman win in F1? The (supposedly) top 20 single seater drivers in the world.The evidence from across the world of physical competition is that women are at a physiological disadvantage. Identical size, weight, prep, etc, the odds are in favour of the man. This becomes an issue when the margins between success and failure are small (e.g. F1). If putting physical effort in is able to produce "better", then the (in all other ways identical) guys will always be able to put the same effort in as the girls, but will come out "better".
There is a physical element to being able to pull high G loads every few seconds for a couple of hours. In general guys are going to be better able to cope with that, giving them an advantage there. So to beat them, a woman is going to have to train harder to remove that (but them if it's possible the guys would do that too), or have advantages in other areas to cancel it out.
What in built advantages is the peak female F1 driver going to have over the peak male F1 driver? Because when it's tiny margins, they will need something.
Could we have peak female F1 driver turn up in a season with no peak male F1 driver? Sure. Technically. Seems pretty unlikely though.
RacerMike said:
You do realise how the comments your making are based on fundamentally sexist assumptions? I don't want to be too woke about it (I definitely not someone who is afraid to disagree with a good number the woke brigades opinions on things) but surely most people these days can see that saying stuff like this is on the same level as phrenology?
How in the world is it sexist to point out the fundamental physical differences between men and women ? LolLeithen said:
So, Hamilton has won seven championships because he can deal with peak G forces better than his competitors? Interesting theory.
Well interestingly in his case, there's every chance the same genetic differences that mean black sprinters are superior, could have helped him.Schumacher definitely used fitness to be better than his competitors. It's the perfect example of what we're discussing. Once everybody realises being a certain level of fitness give you an advantage. They all do it. In general all being men they can put the same effort in, and get the same results. They can level the playing field. If that's level it comes down to all the other elements (and who knows what Lewis actually has as that advantage. He could just be smarter than the others).
If the only difference we're introducing between 2 theoretical groups of F1 competitors is male/female. "all the other elements" will even out, unless there's an element women have that's giving them an advantage over men, but nobody's mentioned it.
So if we have one group with a slight physical advantage, and the other without, in a contest over 1.5-2 hours, involving a physical element, which group is likely to perform better?
Yes, driving F1 (and F2) cars is physically demanding, and every driver, whether they are male or female, now needs to be a gym bunny. At the top level, they all employ full time PTs who travel with them everywhere, making sure they train hard and eat well. Anyone who aspires to F1 needs to be physically fit, and it’s worth remembering that the last woman to drive in F2, Tatiana Calderon, said it was very physically demanding car to drive, especially with no power steering.
Only took a couple of generations to get from a hungover and smoking James Hunt, through Prost and Senna, to Schumacher and now Hamilton - each noticably fitter than the previous generation, and raising the bar for the next lot through.
Car designers would love a few more 5’2” 55kg drivers though, makes it much easier to design the car around them! George Russell drove the Mercedes, when Lewis was sick one race last year, and he could barely fit in the car as he’s quite a bit taller than Lewis or Valtteri, around whom the car was built.
Only took a couple of generations to get from a hungover and smoking James Hunt, through Prost and Senna, to Schumacher and now Hamilton - each noticably fitter than the previous generation, and raising the bar for the next lot through.
Car designers would love a few more 5’2” 55kg drivers though, makes it much easier to design the car around them! George Russell drove the Mercedes, when Lewis was sick one race last year, and he could barely fit in the car as he’s quite a bit taller than Lewis or Valtteri, around whom the car was built.
angrymoby said:
when was the last time an F1 driver looked physically knackered after a race ...apart from a post covid Hamilton?
& wasn't that long ago (2019) that some drivers were complaining that F1 cars were physically too easy to drive
It's not that women can't do it, but they can't do it so easily. A lack of strength to resist the forces imposed on the driver will start to impact accuracy as the driver is in less control of their own movements within the car. Fractional differences count for a lot in a sport where good and not good enough is separated by fractions of a second.& wasn't that long ago (2019) that some drivers were complaining that F1 cars were physically too easy to drive
The strength deficit will always put women at an at least small disadvantage. That's not to say that they can't overcome that disadvantage or compensate for it in other areas. The problem is we haven't had a female F1 driver for so long that we have no idea how much the strength disadvantage will impact them in modern F1 car.
Oilchange said:
Might she get a test contract?
Are they not putting a female in a car for a season because they fear it would be a huge embarrassment and they'd rather avoid this?
Tricky one.. even a female driver that they know will be hopeless will still generate a lot of positive publicity for the team and appeal to new sponsors and audience demographics. Despite that inherent value, there must also become a point at which a driver could be so crap that they ultimately have a negative effect on the teams PR as it would be obvious they selected a totally unsuitable driver for very cynical reasons.Are they not putting a female in a car for a season because they fear it would be a huge embarrassment and they'd rather avoid this?
For Jamie specifically, she can drive the car in a free practice session now, that alone would raise headlines and generate some positive buzz for sure. As such, I expect Williams will give her that opportunity next season. Or perhaps even late this season... I can't think of any reason Williams wouldn't do it for the sake of the publicity - and of course to see just how well Jamie can cope in an F1 car.
Oilchange said:
I’ll watch it, it would be interesting if she out paced someone like Mazepin for example
I'd be impressed if she was within 2 seconds of Mazepin, and if she was I would consider her his equal, easily.The reason being that it would be Jamie's first ever experience in an F1 car, whereas Mazepin spent an entire year flying around the world to receive 1-2-1 tuition by Mercedes in an F1 car at various circuits ahead of this season, in addition to his experience gained this season too of course.
thegreenhell said:
So how well did Susie Wolff do when she did those two FP1 session in the Williams in 2015?
Answer - she was about 8/10ths off teammate Massa's best time in the same sessions in Barcelona and Silverstone.
Is that good or bad or as expected? Or just good 'for a girl'?
That wasn't her first time in an F1 car. And didn't she end up doing fairly well? I recall her not being the slowest in her Friday sessions.. Answer - she was about 8/10ths off teammate Massa's best time in the same sessions in Barcelona and Silverstone.
Is that good or bad or as expected? Or just good 'for a girl'?
The problem with Wolff was that she clearly doubted her ability to compete in an actual GP and/or to set a respectable quali lap - regardless of how competent she appeared in practice/test sessions. Only she and her inner circle would know how much she was struggling and in which areas. Whatever her limitation was, she had one - because she retired stating she could go no further in F1.
There's only so much we can judge from Friday sessions anyway. I would say a better way to judge likely F1 ability in a woman would be to see her race against men in F2 and compare their performances. We've only had one do that though and I would say she wasn't competitive.
thegreenhell said:
So how well did Susie Wolff do when she did those two FP1 session in the Williams in 2015?
Answer - she was about 8/10ths off teammate Massa's best time in the same sessions in Barcelona and Silverstone.
Is that good or bad or as expected? Or just good 'for a girl'?
Massa was no slouch, certainly better than Mazepin. So I would say that would be pretty good for any test driver in their first couple of tests.Answer - she was about 8/10ths off teammate Massa's best time in the same sessions in Barcelona and Silverstone.
Is that good or bad or as expected? Or just good 'for a girl'?
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