While women have competed in Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship, the World Rally Championship, World Rallycross, and Formula E before, never has the entire field in one of the FIA’s headline series been made up of only women.
That changed at Formula E’s pre-season test in Spain last week when the final session of the four-day test was dedicated exclusively to female drivers. Each of the series’ 11 teams participated, with 18 drivers taking to the track for three hours at Circuito del Jarama.
“Opportunities like this allow you to spotlight drivers that have a lot of potential,” NEOM McLaren’s Bianca Bustamante tells RACER. “I feel like it’s a very rare opportunity to get behind the wheel of these cars. We all know how expensive it can be and how limited (the opportunities) are.
Abbi Pulling, who topped the times for Nissan, agrees, saying that without Formula E organizing the group test, opportunities for female drivers would still be limited.
“The opportunity is huge,” she says. “Without Formula E’s support creating an all-female test, as well as all the teams agreeing to run the girls, I probably wouldn’t have had an opportunity to step into this car, so I’m over the moon and I can’t thank everyone involved enough. Hopefully it’s not the last time.
“I think the more things like this, the better. It creates opportunities for everyone early in their career to develop and adapt and learn and work with a very big and established team. The opportunity is super-valuable.”
The drivers came from a variety of backgrounds, with drivers from lower formulae driving alongside the likes of sports car racers, and with a few more experienced Formula E testers sprinkled in, too. For all of them, driving Formula E’s new all-wheel-drive GEN3 Evo car was a wildly different experience – but a useful one.
“I think adapting to the car was a big challenge,” says Chloe Chambers, who tested with Andretti. “It was a good challenge because it was something that I was not used to, so it was nice to have to adapt to a new driving style. It’s definitely something that I’ll be able to use in the future, and hopefully be able to work on it a bit more in the Formula E paddock in the future.
“I went and did some simulator prep about a month ago in Banbury, so I got to run through the systems and get a general idea of how the car will be in real life. Of course, everything changes when you start driving it in real life. The whole feeling is different – you have the feeling of the G-forces, and of course you have that bit of fear aspect to it as compared to the sim, but I think for sure it was an extra challenge having to learn the track as well as the car.
Bustamante adds, “The driving technique is very different. The brake shapes the amount of high speed that we have to endure in the high speed corners, so I think it took a while to adapt to that and build the confidence. Those were the key areas we worked on.”
The test was far from being a box-ticking exercise. Before taking to the track, teams and drivers prepared for several weeks, and in some cases months beforehand. That preparation was hampered by the test’s late switch from Valencia to Jarama near Madrid, but while the track was an unknown, the drivers were ready get to work right away.
“Obviously we did our preparations for Valencia, so we were on the sim – I’ve been on the sim since January just in the hope that I could get behind the wheel of a Formula E car when that opportunity comes, and when it did, it all paid off,” says Bustamante. “I feel like we were really prepared for it. Coming to Madrid, a new track, we made sure I got all my fundamentals in and all the basics, and that I had strong foundations so that whichever track I went to, I‘m able to optimize the car.”
Pulling had less track acclimatization to deal with, having taken to Nissan’s simulator later than her fellow drivers. She jumped in just before getting on the plane to Spain, so she at least had an idea of what to expect following the venue switch.
“To be honest the venue change didn’t affect my preparation at all,” she says. “My simulator day was the week of the test, so by the time I was on the sim we already knew we were going to Madrid, so it worked in my favor to an extent and I got to drive the track. I hadn’t even heard of the track before, let alone knew what way round it went, so that was very useful.”
Every time racing cars take to a track, the first thing anyone looks at are the times. Pulling’s pace-setting time was 3.481s off Mitch Evan’s best from the week – with no prior Formula E experience and 159 fewer laps under her belt, it should be stressed. She was happy to go quickest, but that wasn’t what the day was about for her.
“I think the day was more about learning,” she says. “Obviously it’s nice to be fast, but I wanted to make sure I was very productive with the team and was receptive to any feedback they gave and show that I can apply what they ask because the driving style is very different.
“At the start I was carrying maybe a bit too much speed in the corners, which isn’t the most efficient way to drive this car, so I had to change that. And there’s still a ways to go in Sector 2 and Sector 3 but in Sector 1 I think by the end we were really good around the tight and twisty (sections).”
Bustamante had a spell up top as well, eventually ending the day third, with Indy NXT race-winner Jamie Chadwick – driving for Jaguar – splitting her and Pulling. Nevertheless, she couldn’t hide the fact that her competitive nature began to creep out as the clock wound down.
“Definitely the competitive nature came out towards the end once we put on the new tires,” she says. “Immediately I just kicked it up a notch and I was P1 for quite a while. We set an early benchmark and we just couldn’t improve anymore because we’d already used our new set of tires.
“We’re not far away from the reference lap time of the main series drivers that have already done three days of testing here, and I feel like if we did a full day we could have closed that gap down. So I think we just need opportunities, and once they arise we’re able to perform.”
The desire for more opportunities was a common theme. While Andretti driver Nerea Marti admits that other categories might not be able to arrange similar female-only outings, the test has been good for increasing overall awareness of the underutilized female talent that’s out there.
“Of course not all the categories can do this type of testing but Formula E can do it and did, so that’s really positive,” she says. “I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to get visibilit,y and for them to have us testing is a positive. The afternoon was really short so I would like to go (again) in the future.”
Others feel the test has opened up the very viable prospect of them spending their futures in Formula E.
“I think the way Formula E has handled it is really good,” says Pullings. “They gave us a fair shot at driving the cars, every driver was able to take something out of it and hopefully put on a good enough showing to come back in the future for another test, and even a seat in the future in Formula E. So for sure it’s possible in other series to do the same thing.
“The more laps I did, the more comfortable I felt so I think if I have gotten some more time, the results would be even better, and I would become more comfortable in the car as well. I hope that this becomes a more regular thing and will eventually lead to a full-time seat in the future.
Bustamante points out that while the test was billed as a Womens’ Test, there was no difference in the effort put in by way the teams and series compared to the regular testing earlier in the week.
“The teams and the whole FE community has been amazing and supportive throughout this process,” she says. “I’ve honestly felt so welcome in the paddock. Working with the engineers, they’ve treated me as if I was just a driver, same as any other driver, and the amount of professionalism they treated me with was great.
“I think that’s what’s always needed – to not be treated differently because you’re a woman. Setting that standard is important, and I definitely felt that.”
While female drivers remain a minority in global motorsport, it’s not an entirely new phenomenon in Formula E. In the first season of the all-electric championship, Michela Cerruti and Simona de Silvestro competed. Chadwick, Alice Powell , and Marta Garcia (all of whom were also in action last week) have tested since. But it’s been almost a decade since one raced, and there’s hope last week’s test could be a step in the direction of getting a woman to the top of the motorsport tree.
“The opportunity is amazing. Formula E is the pinnacle of electric racing, similar to how Formula 1 is the pinnacle of open-wheel racing,” says Chambers. “I didn’t quite realize this until (the test), but it’s almost like the equivalent of going and driving a Formula 1 car, especially with the level of competition that you have here in the paddock. You have many successful racing drivers coming here from Formula 1, endurance racing, all types of racing, so it’s really cool to be able to drive such a car so early on in my career.
Marti can already foresee the return of women to Formula E off the back of the test.
“I think it’s very possible to do the championship in the future,” she says. “They want a girl in the championship so I think it’s just time, just preparing the girls and let’s see if we can be there in the future competing in Formula E.”
Having already said she’d be open to racing in Formula E, Alpine Academy driver and current F1 Academy points leader Pulling says that idea was only reinforced off the back of her running last week.
“I think even before this test, Formula E was something that I looked at, and after this test it’s just made that much more of a thought in my mind and a realistic stepping stone,” she says. “What we’ve done at this test is create a solid platform with me and Nissan, and what to work on if I was ever to jump back in the Formula E car.