Susie Wolff is upending F1’s ‘boys club’ with an all-female racing empire

The high-speed racing league has been described as “a boys’ club,” Susie Wolff, the former driver and current F1 Academy managing director told Fortune in a recent interview. 

“I’ll be honest, there’s still some days when I think this feels like a boys’ club,” she said.

Crowned the world’s “most valuable sport empire” by Forbes, the global racing league and its parent company Liberty Media are estimated to be worth a staggering $16 billion. Its 20 drivers race at speeds around 200 mph from the outskirts of Milan to the lavish Yas Island of Abu Dhabi to the picturesque scenes of Monaco. The 10 teams are rewarded handsomely for their victory laps–Red Bull reportedly netted a $140 million payday from the 2023 championship–and have received increasing media spotlight with Netflix’s viral Formula 1: Drive to Survive docuseries.  

One small issue: There are no women driving in the league. 

Of the more than 700 drivers who have raced in the series throughout F1’s 74-year history, only five have been women. No female driver has competed in a race since 1992, and there’s only ever been one female team principal. Liberty Media’s board of directors is also dominated by white men, save for one woman.  

It’s no surprise, then, that the sport—now popular with the likes of billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Citadel founder Ken Griffin, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk—has been dubbed a “boys’ club.”   

There’s never been an explicit rule barring women from participating, and research published by 13-time grand prix winner David Coulthard’s nonprofit More than Equal found there are no physical or psychological barriers that could prevent women from competing in F1.

Some drivers “are very vocal in their support” of getting more women on the racetrack, Wolff insists, pointing to seven-time World Championship winner Lewis Hamilton as the “outstanding driver who is never scared to stand up and support those who maybe don’t have the same chances and who are, let’s say, not as commonly seen in a motorsport paddock.”

Hamilton, the only Black driver in the series, has been an outspoken advocate for increasing diversity on the track. The Mercedes driver told Spanish newspaper AS in 2021 that “we live in a time where this sport has become a billionaire boys’ club.” 

Hamilton, 36, whose acceptance into McLaren’s Young Driver Programme at age 13 helped to fund his early career, explained that breaking into the sport in today’s world would have been difficult. 

“If I go back to where I started, growing up in a normal working class family, there’s no way that I could be here,” he said. “All the guys that you’re fighting against just have that much more money.”

With a high financial barrier to entry, ensuring a diverse playing field is a tough challenge for the sport. But Wolff, leader of F1’s new racing category made entirely for women–has a plan to change that. 

What is F1 Academy? 

Wolff tells Fortune she’s optimistic about the future of motorsports for young women, insisting “slowly but surely, it’s changing; the world has changed.” 

But it wasn’t always that way.

Wolff, 41, started her racing career go-karting at the age of eight, and after decades of ripping through single-seater race tracks, she broke onto the F1 scene in 2012 after joining Williams’ team as a development driver. At the 2014 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, she made history as the first woman to take part in a F1 race weekend in 22 years.

But there were moments during her career where she became frustrated after “always being asked about being a woman in motorsports.”

“I felt I was saying the same thing over and over again,” she said. “Diversity was something people loved to talk about, but very few people actually did anything about it.” 

No woman has participated in an F1 race weekend since Wolff. 

“There was so much noise around my gender, me being always the only one,” she told Fortune. “But actually, it doesn’t matter in motorsport what your gender is because you’re wearing a helmet.”

In 2023, F1 announced that Wolff would serve as managing director for F1 Academy, an all-female driver category meant to develop young talent. The junior series targets drivers aged 16-25, and aims to coach athlete’s mental and physical performance, plus ensure more track time. From Saudi Arabia to Miami to Singapore, the single-seater category hosts race weekends alongside the F1 World Championship at seven events. 

“When the opportunity of Formula One Academy came up, and I could see that this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually drive positive, impactful change in the sport, it really felt like a moment where we stopped talking, and we’re actually taking action,” she said.

But F1 Academy isn’t the first all-female racing series of its kind. The W Series debuted in 2019 with a prize fund of $1.5 million. Its aims to find the next female F1 driver were cut short due to funding issues, forcing organizers to cut its third season short in 2022.  Wolff says she’s determined to learn from those who “tried and failed in the past,” and says F1’s backing and existing fanbase have helped build momentum.

“There’s been so much support for F1 Academy from within the Formula One environment,” she said. “We really are on the cusp of seeing big, impactful change in the sport.”

Each F1 team nominates a driver, while the remaining five F1 Academy cars are sponsored by Puma, Tommy Hilfiger, American Express, or Charlotte Tilbury. The beauty brand’s namesake, who also told the Financial Times she used to go-kart as a child, described F1 as “something otherworldly,” and when presented with the partnership opportunity, said, “I had to do it.” 

“The world still isn’t where it should be in terms of supporting women,” Tilbury told the publication. “Just because things have been done a certain way forever, why do they have to be that way? Why can more women not be represented in sport?” 

Wolff agrees, noting that “Formula 1 is a big business,” and “partnerships are a huge part of motorsport because there’s such a high financial barrier to entry.”

According to Wolff, F1 Academy subsidizes “nearly all” of its drivers’ budgets, meaning that of the €600,000 needed to complete a season, the driver must contribute €100,000 for the 2024 season.

“We’re giving more support to female drivers in the hope that they can progress up the ladder,” Wolff says.

The future of F1 

The world is five or six years away from the next female F1 driver, according to Wolff’s estimates.

“I think a woman has a better chance of becoming a Formula One driver in this day and age because there’s simply more opportunity and there’s more support out there,” she says. “But it’s still a very, very competitive sport and to be a driver that makes it onto that grid of 20, regardless of your gender, is tough.” 

She pointed to other women’s sports as other leagues “build huge momentum” and gain more interest around the world.

“I want to make sure that the next generation, those racing in Formula One Academy, can learn from all my experiences, but also avoid all the mistakes that I made in my career.”

F1’s fan base is changing, too. In 2022, F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali told Deadline that 40% of F1’s global fans were women, an increase of 8% from 2017.

Netflix’s Drive to Survive is driving more fans to F1, too. According to a Nielsen study of the docuseries and F1 races, the number of American fans jumped from 44.9 million in 2019–the year the series premiered–to 49.2 million in 2022.

Drivers like Lando Norris have noticed the change, too. The McLaren racer told Today in November that “at times it feels like more girls than guys.”

“There’s a huge amount of girls who are into it, and I think that’s a good thing, not only for the sport as a whole to increase the variety of people that are watching, but also for girls to get into racing,” he said.

But as the sport grows, Wolff doesn’t think an all-female F1 league is necessary. 

“It’s a sport where it comes down to talent, and I truly believe given the right support, given the right opportunity, you can see women excelling up the ladder towards Formula One without it being segregated.”