Female driver in F1?

Susie Wolff gives Danica Patrick a run for the money in both the looks and talent department. However, F1 racing is much harder than driving around in circles at 100% throttle, which Danica had down to perfection in IndyCar and now at the big NASCAR tracks. Ten times harder.

Planet F1 reported Williams test driver Susie Wolff said that Ecclestone is reportedly "determined to see a female driver compete in Formula One." Wolff "entered F1 last season with Williams but has yet to pit herself against F1's male drivers as her efforts have been kept to aerodynamic tests and one day at Silverstone" in October. The Scot, though, "is determined to secure her superlicense this year" and take another step toward the F1 grid. And she reckons that "the powers-that-be are keen to see a female in the sport."

In London, Kevin Eason wrote NASCAR driver Danica Patrick’s achievement of the past week at the Daytona 500 "is either the breakthrough for women in motor racing or the high water mark. Which is it?" There have been plenty of optimistic noises about the rise of women to the front rank of the sport. Wolff said that Ecclestone "was massively pushing" for a women in F1. He will need "a lot of shoulder power."

The sad but ultimate fact of motor racing is that "there are no women to push." Patrick is it and the chances of her getting into F1 "range from remote to non-existent — unless, of course, a combination of powerful sponsors and some leg work from Bernie push her into a seat in one of the middling teams." The objections "are not to Patrick, the woman driver, but to Patrick, the driver from" the U.S. IndyCar — and certainly NASCAR — "has long been considered massively inferior to Formula One, which is why team principals will not touch drivers from over there with a barge pole, or probably some sort of high-tech piece of carbon fiber." London Times