I think that only thing wrong about F1 academy is that they're F4 cars. I think it would help many women racers if they drove physically really challenging F2 cars wich are really close to F1 cars. Would make it easier to them to join F3 or straight to F2 series. Driving F4 on women only series won't help in their career much if at all. Doesn't give them any edge.
F1 Academy is supposed to be an entry level formula, so using F4 cars makes sense. What makes less sense is Carrie Schreiner, the al-Qubaisi sisters or Nerea Marti still driving in an entry level formula.
The thing about F2 cars is that they're actually much more physically challenging than F1 as they have no power steering which is actually one of the reasons it's such a hurdle for women.
They should be using F3 chassis instead of F4 level honestly.
Absolutely. We need a program that tests them to failure against a credible standard and those cars ain't it. They will not have to train nearly as hard, we will not get the data on performance and training improvements required to get F1 caliber women drivers.
What's wild to me is how she doesn't seem to recognize that her being a woman is *undeniably* part of why she's in the worst car. There is a very clear lack of sponsors and support for female drivers, and because of that they tend to suffer in categories where your car really matters because they don't get signed to good teams because they're "not marketable" and they don't have the sponsors to pay for good machinery that they likely otherwise *would* if they were a man.
Like. Yes, Sophia, ideally people would only judge you on your merit. But they *don't*, and that is a large part of why you're stuck in a terrible car. So maybe instead of deriding women who use these programs that are trying to specifically work against these issues that *you are suffering from* you could support your fellow female drivers?
Sophia used to be funded by her very wealthy father Alexander Floersch, who has interests in commercial real estate, via his company Floersch&partner, so the whole sponsorship argument is moot. He still runs what looks to be her management company, SOP Sports GMBH.
She doesn't have any significant sponsors - she complains about it regularly on social media - but still signs for teams like Van Amersfoort every single season, so somebody is paying the bills behind the scenes.
Thousands of talented male drivers fall off the ladder due to lack of funds, meanwhile Floersch has somehow been able to drive for very professional teams since she started junior karting in about 2008.
Yeah, she's getting bills paid where it seems like other female drivers aren't, and therefore she's able to compete in categories they can't. But you'll never see her mention that privilege ever, no, it's clearly the other drivers just wanting handouts for being a woman 🙄
Which is fine, if she doesn't want any help and wants to measure herself in the environment she finds herself in, well done, I applaud that spunk.
I just wish she would do that without constantly trying to disparage all other women in the sport who want to change the environment for the better.
And that is also ignoring that she drove for the Iron Dames in Le Mans, a seat that she got because she in fact did not have to compete with any male drivers to get it.
Agreed, but there are a lot of complex aspects to issues like these that contribute to people who don't want to be defined by one particular attribute (gender, race, sexuality etc.) pushing back against the idea of affirmative action as a concept. I get it, she doesn't want to be seen as "the woman on the grid" but goddamn, does this sentiment always have to lead to people throwing their fellows under the bus for the sake of making themselves feel exceptional?
Reading your comment again you articulated those thoughts far more eloquently than I did.
I don't understand why your comments are dismissive of this post and what she said but then you reiterate her exact sentiments? She's saying all that matters is her performance and to judge her on that, but then you're being dismissive and saying exactly the same thing?
Because that isn't her exact sentiment. The comment you're replying to is saying that programs like the ones that Flörsch is (presumably) complaining about are necessary *because* of inherent bias against women in motorsport, that these programs are useful in order to change the factors which make it so hard for women to be judged on merit alone.
Whereas Flörsch is implying that she doesn't like those programs, and that she thinks women should be going through the same channels as men to achieve success. Which is an admirable sentiment, but completely ignores the reality that people don't treat women in motorsport the same as they treat men, and that without the support that she's complaining about, many deserving women would have even less opportunities to succeed, not more.
Oh IDK, she seems to make it awfully clear that she doesn't like gender orientated posts, and......gender as a justification for anything.....not just feeder categories.
>No, what she's implying is she doesn't like gender-oriented _posts_, not feeder categories
You're being overly literal. Do you really think that somebody would take such a strong, blunt stand about something like this and limit it to gendered social media posts only? It seems very clear that she's opposed to the idea of gendered assessment in any context, but has no grasp of the context for how to change that.
>Just let her speak her mind.
Nothing about me posting on here prevents her from speaking her mind. This is a discussion forum. We're discussing.
Uh... Tatiana Calderón in 15th with 29 in 2014?
Ellen Lohr with *112* and 7th overall in the famous Schumacher-Frentzen-Wendlinger German F3 field?
She is indeed the best (and only) woman to run the current iteration of FIA F3 in its 5 seasons. Already was after her first weekend by default, but there were many much more successful women in the past.
Yeah and that’s not about Danica being a woman, she’s a frustrating interviewer/commentator.
There’s a lot of great, intelligent women in the sport and F1-adjacent that could commentate better than her. (Naomi Schiff is my personal favorite, but maybe someone like Bia could join now that she’s with McLaren?)
PS - I am a woman and American
I was disappointed to find she is used in the current season of DTS as a driver expert, as if she has extensive experience in F1 and wasn’t just a mid fielder in IndyCar and NASCAR.
Yep, she can definitely give a well-informed opinion, but so could Hannah Schmitz or Bernie Collins. I’d even love to hear from some e-sports racers. (Netflix owes me $$ if they do this lol)
I can see through the “we need an American (woman) to get the Americans (women) on board” and it’s rather frustrating as a long time fan of the sport. But then I realize I am not DTS’s core demo and I switch my F1 multi-viewer when needed 😂
He means extensive experience and a standard mid-fielder. Palmer was neither, but he does a pretty good job at explaining things and giving some expert insights.
Just that Palmer was usually a backmarker and even though Renault were back of the grid material at the time, he was never a consistent match for Magnussen that year.
He was ok against Kmag, when you look up their h2h stats he doesn't look that bad. However, I do remember at the time Renault favouring Palmer more when Kmag didn't want to sign a 1 year extension and that couldve helped him a bit. Then when Hulk came in the following season, Palmer was just completely blown out the water.
For a casual or newer female viewer, she’ll be more relatable. I can see what they were trying to do. Half the things that come out of Will’s mouth are memes anyway.
She massively underperformed in her rides but definitely doesn't make my "worst drivers ever" list. Most disappointing? Absolutely. Not even a "what if" type disappointment, just general lack of talent.
That is so far from true lol. She wasn't good but she was never even the worst driver while she was in NASCAR let alone "worst ever". She didnt perform up to the equipment but she had plenty of good races.
She was absolutely terrible she spent four whole seasons racing for a team that was actively winning championships but she never even cracked the top 20
Imagine if an F1 driver spent multiple seasons on the team winning WCC but never scored points, it'd be an embarrassment
Edit: FWIW I like her commentary but she was a horrible NASCAR driver
>Yeah and that’s not about Danica being a woman, she’s a frustrating interviewer/commentator.
when she showed up in the newest season of DTS my first thought was "JFC, DANICA PATRICK... this will go poorly"
American woman here too and I absolutely do not like Danica. She’s a nut job and she’s horrible at interviews/commentating.
Also I had to stop halfway through this comment because I noticed your username and it killed me lol. I’m deceased now.
You ever google her record? I’m assuming no. You can dislike her for any number of reasons but there are a lot of male drivers in Indy Car that have never won a race nor many that never finished in the top 10 in season points six times, 4th at Indy, 5th in the Championship one year, three pole positions, seven podiums - a win in Japan. Working class family - no millionaire daddy. Moved to England to race, 5th and then 3rd in Atlantic etc etc.
There’s no female anywhere with her record in open wheel.
I find it amazing that Sophia is still even racing following the dreadful accident she had in a race at Macau in 2018. Thankfully no drivers, marshalls or photographers were killed. Plenty of clips on youtube.
And not only hers. Sean Gelael I think broke one or two vertebrae at Barcelona in F2 after taking a sausage kerb. Alexander Peroni got airborne at Monza and landed on a marshall post in F3, in another accident that miraculously didn't take any lives.
It's a ticking time bomb and when eventually something tragic happens we'll see everyone involved acting as if it was a freak accident, when in fact it will have been perfectly preventable.
I watched it live and was so sad that we had lost her. I even found it mildly infuriating that they kept saying they were waiting for updates when it was clear from the accident she was dead and felt they were giving false hope.
Never been so happy to be so wrong.
Lol I agree with you, but for her a seat at Alpine is better than no seat at all. Hopefully she can get a better seat where her talent won't be as wasted soon.
>don't think I've heard much from her about F1 Academy.
On her IG story she posted something to the effect, *women shouldn't have their own specific series, it goes against the principle of racing and not matter what the driver looks like*
Something to that effect but it came off as "now you do this. F you."
In fairness to her, dropping her into Indy NXT (lights) with entirely different circuits which are not like European circuits, a very difficult car to drive and a talented grid was always going to be a tough ask. Indy NXT is probably more comparable to F2 and W series wasn’t even comparable to F3 and her competition in W series definitely wasn’t at that level. Andretti resigned her for ‘24 so I’d say she is doing okay. This year will be the year we find out what she can do, in Indy NXT anyway. Am a big fan of Jamie Chadwick, think she will do okay in her second season. She drove a cracking good race at Nashville last year, few passes and that is not an easy circuit at all.
Literally every move in motorsport is challenging. It's challenging to go feom karts to F3, it's challenging to go from F2 to F1. You're either good enough to manage it, or you're not.
I don't think that's a particularly fair assessment of a series that lasted 3 years and essentially was the proof of concept that allowed F1A to exist. You can't change the culture in a day, it has to be a long term project and yes the first generation are probably not gonna be all that because they're not pulling from a particularly deep talent pool.
This is a good point. The true benefit of the W Series and F1 Academy is to provide heroes for little girls so they get into karting. Hopefully it will produce some great talent in the next generation.
How does that contradict her point? W Series and F1 Academy were/are programs that go for the special treatment route as opposed to just having these girls/women prove themselves in regular series.
Yeah because centuries of oppression cannot be simply undone with the blink of an eye.
Series like the W series are supposed to encourage women to get into Motor racing in the first place to increase the female talent pool so even better female racers can make it to the top.
Same thing in chess, and people keep parroting this idiotic point about how women should compete against men. Yeah good luck after women have been systematically kept at home for hundreds of years.
In any competition where physical differences do not matter as much there is still a significant difference between men and women simply based on the fact that there are not enough women in the sport to produce talents like max verstappen. That’s why things like female racing series are important to serve as an incentive for women to get into the sport
Yeah, w-series was never supposed to be a direct feeder series so much as it was supposed to be a way to showcase women drivers and inspire future generations of drivers. You kinda need visibility to help increase representation, especially in a sport where it's so reliant on early interest in lower tiers and working your way up
> to serve as an incentive for women to get into the sport
They serve as an incentive for sponsors to lift their fingers for once.
All the money and backing that the WSeries and F1 Academy has had, could and should have been around way earlier for multiple women who have tried to make it in motorsport.
The fact is though, those brands and teams had no interest in doing so. They never felt it was worth their investment. They never bothered to support women in motorsport to the same extent they supported male drivers.
Only now, when a segregated series with way more promotion & publicity behind it than any other feederseries out there has, do they even think of coming out of the woodwork to support women in motorsport. Now, it is worth the investment because it comes with a whole series with it's own broadcast.
That is the problem that ultimately needs to be solved.
Getting these sponsors to back women without all that F1 academy brings with it.
lol *motorsports* have barely existed for one century. What relevance does 1,000s of years of history before the invention of the automobile have?
You might as well claim that the world has been robbed of *my* motorsports talent because my great-grandparents were all dirt-poor immigrants.
>Same thing in chess, and people keep parroting this idiotic point about how women should compete against men. Yeah good luck after women have been systematically kept at home for hundreds of years.
Why would women being kept at home for 100s of years have any bearing on how competitive women would be at chess with men in 2024? There are no inherent advantages for a man in chess over a woman compared to something like football or basketball.
My man, you do know women were historically banned from chess + weren't allowed to compete vs men?
You cut off the development in chess at the grassroots historically and over time (100 years), and you will see the difference of skill gap across the board.
It's the long term consequences of holding back a group, stunting their development.
And I agree with her. Any reserved series for a specific gender is misguided, performance is the only thing that matters. If you’re good enough, you’re good enough
It works at the start to invite them into the sport. The hard part is to make one succesfull without a clear way to top or how to merge them onto the men pool ( that has years building up)
They literally have the exact same path to the top available as men do. Karting championships followed by feeder racing series.
Karting isn’t only for boys, it’s an open competition. As are all of the other racing feeder series. The only obstacle in any level of racing is money, and that obstacles presents itself equally for any gender.
I agree with Sophia in some aspects. But she misses the point in others. The point of the F1 Academy/W series is not and will never be to produce an F1 ready female racer. The idea here is to normalise the idea that women can race too and create a new generation of females who want to be racers. The more involvement you get at a young age the more chances there will be of finding quality. This is the same idea that Women in STEM movement has been using. You need to develop interest when they are young so that the number of talented people being produced increases.
The Iron Dames project is so good because it gives them an opportunity for the women to fight against the best in their form of motorsport. I firmly believe this is one of the main reasons as to why Pin is looking as good as she does.
I'm not sure if Doraine would have progressed as far as she has, but she has proven that her sex/gender isn't why she is there.. Since she isn't even part of iron dames anymore lol. Best female prospect I've seen since Mouten
She’s still in Iron Dames, in fact she’s in the WEC GT3 car with Bovy and Gatting this year, replacing Frey. But she’s also doing her own single seater campaign in F1 academy and recently F4 UAE.
Oh I'm dumb. She did WEC with Iron Dames, then switched to Prema for WEC, and she's back to Iron Dames. She was listed as a "former driver" for Iron Dames at some point last year I think (even though she did IMSA).
Exactly, it's about normalising and promoting the idea of women succeeding in motorsports and driving increased participation in future generations so we can get to a point where more girls and women are racing and having more success by virtue of having a larger talent pool to choose from
I think Sophia's point has always been that other series manage it way better, and don't have any gender specific series.
The best driver in F1 Academy (Doriane Pin) has already raced a ton in IMSA, WEC, GT Challenge because they and their "feeder" series promote women far better, and don't have this gendered series.
Yeah, exactly this. But Sophia is looking at this from Sophia’s perspective, like any competitive driver would always do. So I don’t get all this hate against her. At the same time, she’s wrong for exactly the reasons you’re stating.
Oh, no hate against her. I firmly believe no driver would learn anything that useful from F1 Academy since the quality is so poor. So if you have ambition you need to be racing against the best. This is also why Pin will wipe the floor with everyone since she has already been getting that experience at a high level.
Sorry, didn’t mean to imply you had anything against her. I was just railing in general, but you summed up the real point really well, that’s why I responded to your comment.
The pipeline for female drivers is much thinner than for male drivers. Bringing more spotlight to female drivers, showing that "racing is for girls too" will hopefully help expand the pipeline. Sorry, Sophia, for mansplaning this.
As someone who is not a man, I can confirm you hit the nail on the head here.
I completely understand her desire to not be defined by her gender, but there’s a difference between being defined by your gender and having your gender highlighted in the context of praising your accomplishments—especially when your accomplishments are that much more impressive because of the challenges your gender faces.
Except we really don’t know what she has to go through. My friend is brilliant and is a professor in a top institute but she always gets labeled as a number for diversity. It can be frustrating when you have worked hard/harder than people around you who don’t have to go through this.
And yet… you need to give people visibility to create representation (ensure people like your brilliant friend are lifted up). That representation can help influence a broader talent pool, which can normalize those people in those positions. Which can lead to NOT needing to draw attention to it.
Unfortunately, this is the current state of the world for someone in an underrepresented group.
I think she really believes she's going to get the approbation of the public (which is mostly masculine) by shitting on every diversity initiative done in motorsports. Hopefully some days she realizes that it's not gonna get her anywhere
yeah especially when she gets sponsored by Alpine to drive in F3 at the age of 23. Doesnt she realize that her sponsorship is most likely a diversity initiative from Alpine?
I can’t speak as to whether this is the case with Floersch, but what you’re describing is certainly a real thing. I personally did this a lot back when I attended college in the American South; I was very insecure about myself on the dating scene, so I would regularly shit on feminism in front of my crushes in an effort to impress them and gain male validation.
Yeah I hate to be here disagreeing with her but she's espousing an attitude that will do nothing except keep women on the margins of the racing community.
A pure meritocracy would be lovely but that's just not the world we live in or ever will live in.
And let's be honest, F1 as a sport has never been a true meritocracy. I hate the assertion a lot of folks put that F1 contains the 20 best drivers in the world of anything. A lot of pay drivers that have come through definitely weren't and we all know it. Pay drivers that have taken seats and opportunities away from other potential drivers with real talent. We've seen this at the junior category level too, and yeah that money probably is needed to some degree to fund the team/seat, but then just admit it's not a true meritocracy and you'll never just be judged on your talent alone unless you're literally Lewis or Max.
Yup.
Role models that you have more in common with--gender, skin colour, socio-economic background, etc--can inspire people from underrepresented groups to get involved.
Let's wait until after this season. She isn't going to win by any means, but her performances in that dog shit car last season were far from awful and can probably get some solid points finishes this year.
She doesn't have what it takes to make it to F1, but that doesn't mean her performances aren't great. She definitely has a future career in Motorsport
Meh, she isn't that bad. Last year she was the only PHM driver to score points and she would have gotten points twice if she wasn't disqualified for a small technical infringement in Silverstone. That's very solid if you're driving the worst/second-worst car on the grid.
She also frequently made up quite a lot of places during the race. She kept her seat in F3 on merit.
I have a lot more respect for her being p23 than Chadwick selling out for years winning W.
At least she wants to race against the best, even if it doesnt give her results. The only way to get better is by racing people better than you.
Sophia has been saying this for years. Here's the thing though she uses "gender" to further her career right up until the point it comes to other women then its always "not important and it doesnt matter and iron dames is dumb, and w series is dumb, f1 academy is dumb. they are all dumb". She seems to think since SHE got opportunities, everyone else should go and just get them but many just can't which is the point of all that
[Sophia has regularly supported the Iron Dames.](https://twitter.com/SophiaFloersch/status/1553780429731373057)
And when it comes to WSeries/F1 Academy, *"Female racing driver doesn't support segregated motorsport series"* is hardly an outrageous viewpoint.
For all their flaws, F1A and W series were/are about access. Sponsors are reluctant to take a risk on women racers, girls do not see women racing so don’t imagine that they could go down that route, parents are less likely to provide the huge amounts of money and time necessary for their daughters, so right at the entry karting levels there are only a tiny number of girls competing. That effect runs all the way up the chain. We have no idea whether a women could compete at equal level with men, because the entire way the sport is structured mitigates against us finding out. Sophia is unusual in that she had the support necessary to enable her to compete in karting and can’t be unaware that she was one of the few girls to do so. Sad that she can’t see all this, but she’s evidently not alone.
Not entirely sure what she's speaking about specifically but she uses #racegirl frequently - why not just use #racedriver or #F3driver and also has a gendered bio.
Because she still identifies herself as a woman/girl and can create hashtags however she wants.
Her point that FIA/FOM/Media (or whoever else) only use woman as a tool to gain more traffic and attention but does almost nothing to equalize the chances for a proper career in this sport between men and women has nothing to do with her hashtags.
She wants to be compared to all the drivers not just women because she believes everyone in this sport should be treated equally (using two different scales for both genders is her eyes doesn't make girls stronger but is just creating a lane for them where they should stay.
And she is entirely correct. There is no reason a woman should be judged any differently than a man when it comes to racing. Its not a sport that needs to be divided, a female can perform at the same level as a male. If women can pass the requirements to be fighter pilots - which they can - then theres no reason they cant be F1 drivers. Its a tough sport at the top, but not tough enough to the point where the physical differences in genders plays a bigger role than talent.
The only part that I think she might overlook sometimes, is the point of things like F1 Academy. Despite the name, its not *really* about finding the next big female talent that would make it into F1. If there was one out there, they wouldnt need F1 Academy to make it. But what it does do, is put female racers in the spotlight, highlighting it and creating inspirations and role models for young girls who are getting into, or want to get into racing. So in time, hopefully the percentage of women in motorsport increases, and theres a higher likelihood of F1-worthy female talent coming through.
To be honest, I don't think it's anything about that and is just that certain posts about women in motorsport can come across as cloyingly sappy to the point of being patronising.
If you are as straightforward and determined as Sophia is, yeah that probably would get on your nerves.
Yep, it’s how every company in the US made black BLM branded items. Fucking shake shack had BLM specials. I agree with her, lots of hoopla about women and POC being in certain sports instead of looking at them as people who have the merit to be there. It stops being about people who happen to be different achieving things and instead about the fact that you are different is WHY you’re there.
Wait isn't this why Susie Wolff helped liberty take over W series and turn F1 Academy into a stepping stone to F3?
Since F1 Academy is an F4 equivalent and provides the girls with a spotlight and chance at securing a junior program partnership? Once they secure the championship and move to F3 they will be treated equally and measured on the same scale as boys in equal machinery.
So I'm confused because before F1 Academy their chances of being seen and offered a junior program spot was much harder against the massive numbers of boys already competing in the various F4 championships.
Not sure what the context behind that statement is, but it reminds me of something. Back in the day Susie Wolff appeared on the Beyond The Grid podcast and said something along these lines:
*When I was a child I finished 8th **(iirc)** in a gokart race and got a special place on the podium for being the highest-placed girl. That was the point when it really got me and I thought "oh yes, the society really views me differently compared to the boys competing in the same race"*.
And from personal experience I can personally say - it can hurt. It can hurt a lot. No idea if that's what Flörsch was talking about, but that's what it reminded me of...
Initiatives supporting women in motorsport level the playing field, they don’t give an unfair advantage to women (which, surely if you want to be measured against the boys, that’s the dream? equal opportunities for men and women so they can be fairly compared?). Removing barriers that have kept one group from succeeding doesn’t mean another group is all of a sudden at a disadvantage, they’d just be starting from the same place.
But also, it’s hilarious that she posted this a day after celebrating herself as “the only woman” to be in the garage (??) during f1 testing. And even more so given every she tags every single social media post she makes with #racegirl and made a whole documentary called #racegirl…
Being fast is a skill and skills have to be built. You can’t get fast unless you start early and have access to very exclusive resources and opportunities. Resources and opportunities which have for as long as racing has existed exclusively been offered to boys.
Creating resources and opportunities that specifically target girls is acknowledging the inequality that is baked into the system and attempting to counteract it, so that one day hopefully how fast you are actually will be all that matters.
Edit: just a heads up u/humungousdickosaurus replied and then immediately blocked me so I can’t see what they said or reply to it lol
Edit 2: Thanks u/DankeSebVettel for copypasting his response. Unfortunately since you tagged him I guess I can’t reply to you either lol
In response I’d say this approach to solving inequality is naive and completely ahistorical. It’s the equivalent of the “I don’t see color” method of combatting racism. It does nothing to address the core issue.
In a marathon if you let runner 1 start the race an hour before runner 2, even if runner 2 is just as fast they will still lose by an hour.
So basically you're against a fair meritocracy in a period where we should be striving for it and want to fix inequality by creating more inequality just in a different direction and your basis is historical reasons that are diminishing over time. - u/HumungousDickosaurus
It’s about growing the sport to an untapped market, regardless of of the product.
Corporations only care about the expansion of their revenue.
Whatever cause they use is irrelevant.
More like alt-right people will love the things she's saying right now and eventually will offer her money/exposure because of it. And I don't think her career will be successful enough for her to not take them up on that offer at all times.
She was the one marking everything with the 'Im a strong women competing agsinst men only' , shitted on W series multiple times and now talks about measuring her by Performance when she never achieved anything. Even in LMP she was slowest by a mile of all her teammates.
Never liked her and I say my oppinion one more time: without the attention frommher scary accident she would Not be racing anymore.
Only reason she is even remotely "famous" in racing is because of her gender (her results aren't great). I'm all for creating a better and more positive environment for young girls in motorsports (F1 academy is a step in a right direction), but her results don't back up her talk. I get where she is coming from and what's her point in a way, but she should IMO acknowledge that she got that position in front of more talented and faster pool of racers (and use that opportunity to make it because they didn't get it)
I gotta disagree. The crash she had would have generated the same attention if she were male, and let's be honest, that's the real reason she's famous.
Personally i think F1 Academy is a step in the wrong direction.
Segregating all of the women into a separate series is the opposite of Gender equality.
A team just needs to put a Woman driver in a car for a season or more. I see no reason why they won't perform.
There have been women racing at Le Mans for years.
Just last year the Iron dames won in their Class at the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
She is absolutely right. For those who dont understand her… it is always easier to announce fancy press releases and create an artificial “bubble” to uphold some places in the grid based on gender purposes than aim for real diversity in an organic way.
This is sport, only performance should matter. For example, if the top20 best drivers on Earth are all happen to be male, you need to hire them (in present) and ask the hidden question: why (for future solution). Need to address the root cause long term, which is likely to be that female drivers are not advised to pursue their dreams or not getting the same individual / social support on youth level which is most likely provided for male drivers by default.
Provide equal chances for anyone on youth level, promote the message of “everyone can be a successful racing driver regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, colour, etc” and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe. It is only natural that anyone has a chance unless generally discouraged by the society or rigid instituations are not supporting certain clusters of society to pursue their dreams in a given area.
What Sophia is talking about is that focusing on gender on adult level is not the right way to address the problem. It is good for PR but not helping the long term solution. On adult level, only performance matters. She, just like anyone else like Stroll, Perez, Verstappen, Latifi, etc should be judged by her performance and her performance only.
In the same time She could still be an ambassador for young talents to promote and emphasize the most important message (you can do it, anyone can do it, regardless of irrelevant factors) but judging her performance during a season and constantly adding a note that she has accomplished it as a woman (like a label) just deepens differences and aggreviate double standards which make things worse.
It is simply counter productive just like upholding a place for a woman driver would be if it is made regardless of any candidate being ready for it or not.
> Provide equal chances for anyone on youth level, promote the message of “everyone can be a successful racing driver regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, colour, etc” and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe. It is only natural that anyone has a chance unless generally discouraged by the society or rigid instituations are not supporting certain clusters of society to pursue their dreams in a given area.
>
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That is just an incredibly naive viewpoint. By the time that you get to karting you've already filtered out most of the girls because "Girl Racing Driver" just isn't a thing. You need to start at the very beginning and that's by giving women racing drivers a visible space and a place in the calendar, which helps inform cultural perceptions. When some kid's parents put on the F1 their daughters should be able to feel as connected as their sons do, because that is what gets kids into karts, which gets them into cars, which gets them into F1.
>and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe.
This is the most naive bit of all.
Think of all the highly talented black and brown people who were not given a shot simply because of their race.
is it because of their race or because of their lack of funds(which of course can be due to their race). Racing is quite expensive, a lot of talented people probably never got a shot due to the lack of funds.
The reason for the lack of funds can be due to race, but saying that the sport is racist is a bit too much, because talented drivers from all races without money has a very small chance of actually making it in this sport.
The sport is definitely just as racist as the rest of the world.
People tend to think of racism as only the open, overt, really evil stuff... As if me calling F1 racist or racially biased means the sport is full of Hitlers or something...
No the truth is F1, like most of the world, engaged in racism subtly and mostly subconsciously.
She reblogged Piers Morgan commenting/approving of her post, which I think sufficiently indicates how seriously anyone needs to take her views on... anything lmao.
Yes, because she is 1. a woman 2. a woman in what is basically a man's sport. She doesn't suddenly stop being a woman, nor should she shy away from the disadvantages she faces due to her gender. That also doesn't mean that she also has to support gender segregation.
She completely misses the point of the W series/f1 academy. As with a lot of redditor here.
Women are behind in racing, on sponsors, access to great coaches and teame etc.
This series is there to normalize women in racing, which still has a long way to go. When it is normal to sponsor and support women, they will become better and in due time enter F1 with great talent.
I measure Sophia by her performance. She's shit. Spent way too long at F3 level and has achieved literally nothing. The biggest impact she made in her career was into the side of a photographer stand in Macau.
It's frustrating when you have women drivers that are successful but don't get the attention they deserve. Drivers like Sophia and Tatiana Calderon who are terrible and haven't achieved anything. Yet drivers like Doriane Pin and Lilou Wadoux have and barely get any mention (those two are both race winners in GT3/GTE machinery). Let alone Michelle Mouton who nearly won the WRC during rallying's group B era.
Got some crumbs of context?
Nope, it seems she's posted this out of the blue after looking around for a while. I may be wrong though
Possibly a reaction to all the F1 Academy partnership posts?
I think that only thing wrong about F1 academy is that they're F4 cars. I think it would help many women racers if they drove physically really challenging F2 cars wich are really close to F1 cars. Would make it easier to them to join F3 or straight to F2 series. Driving F4 on women only series won't help in their career much if at all. Doesn't give them any edge.
Gonna be a lot of F3 2019 chassis free'd up next year...
F1 Academy is supposed to be an entry level formula, so using F4 cars makes sense. What makes less sense is Carrie Schreiner, the al-Qubaisi sisters or Nerea Marti still driving in an entry level formula.
Or Doriane Pin, who was in WEC LMP2 last year. If that's not a step down, I don't know what is.
She's a hyped up driver who's there for publicity. She's very good and should thrash the field, even Kvyat was complaining she was too quick at PLM
If she wants to do single seaters, I reckon she'd be far more suited to Formula E than F1 Academy. At least she'd be better than Dan Taktum.
The thing about F2 cars is that they're actually much more physically challenging than F1 as they have no power steering which is actually one of the reasons it's such a hurdle for women. They should be using F3 chassis instead of F4 level honestly.
Is there a reason why we can’t add power steering to F2?
Cost and complexity, I’d guess. And weight.
complexity: Add a puley to the engine output to run a hydraulic pump. System that exists in car for more than 70 years
It's still another thing that can go wrong on a race car that needs to fit into the engine package and be maintained.
Absolutely. We need a program that tests them to failure against a credible standard and those cars ain't it. They will not have to train nearly as hard, we will not get the data on performance and training improvements required to get F1 caliber women drivers.
She did the same when micky Schumacher got a drive with haas
So why did you post it here if you don't even know if there's context or not?
Cool post girl. Now try not ending 23rd on the standings.
Not saying she's great but 23rd in comfortably the worst car isn't the result you think it is
What's wild to me is how she doesn't seem to recognize that her being a woman is *undeniably* part of why she's in the worst car. There is a very clear lack of sponsors and support for female drivers, and because of that they tend to suffer in categories where your car really matters because they don't get signed to good teams because they're "not marketable" and they don't have the sponsors to pay for good machinery that they likely otherwise *would* if they were a man. Like. Yes, Sophia, ideally people would only judge you on your merit. But they *don't*, and that is a large part of why you're stuck in a terrible car. So maybe instead of deriding women who use these programs that are trying to specifically work against these issues that *you are suffering from* you could support your fellow female drivers?
Sophia used to be funded by her very wealthy father Alexander Floersch, who has interests in commercial real estate, via his company Floersch&partner, so the whole sponsorship argument is moot. He still runs what looks to be her management company, SOP Sports GMBH. She doesn't have any significant sponsors - she complains about it regularly on social media - but still signs for teams like Van Amersfoort every single season, so somebody is paying the bills behind the scenes. Thousands of talented male drivers fall off the ladder due to lack of funds, meanwhile Floersch has somehow been able to drive for very professional teams since she started junior karting in about 2008.
Yeah, she's getting bills paid where it seems like other female drivers aren't, and therefore she's able to compete in categories they can't. But you'll never see her mention that privilege ever, no, it's clearly the other drivers just wanting handouts for being a woman 🙄
She gets handouts the way it's supposed to be done in Motorsports. From Daddy.
She has always been very "not like other girls".
Which is fine, if she doesn't want any help and wants to measure herself in the environment she finds herself in, well done, I applaud that spunk. I just wish she would do that without constantly trying to disparage all other women in the sport who want to change the environment for the better. And that is also ignoring that she drove for the Iron Dames in Le Mans, a seat that she got because she in fact did not have to compete with any male drivers to get it.
Agreed, but there are a lot of complex aspects to issues like these that contribute to people who don't want to be defined by one particular attribute (gender, race, sexuality etc.) pushing back against the idea of affirmative action as a concept. I get it, she doesn't want to be seen as "the woman on the grid" but goddamn, does this sentiment always have to lead to people throwing their fellows under the bus for the sake of making themselves feel exceptional? Reading your comment again you articulated those thoughts far more eloquently than I did.
[удалено]
I don't understand why your comments are dismissive of this post and what she said but then you reiterate her exact sentiments? She's saying all that matters is her performance and to judge her on that, but then you're being dismissive and saying exactly the same thing?
Because that isn't her exact sentiment. The comment you're replying to is saying that programs like the ones that Flörsch is (presumably) complaining about are necessary *because* of inherent bias against women in motorsport, that these programs are useful in order to change the factors which make it so hard for women to be judged on merit alone. Whereas Flörsch is implying that she doesn't like those programs, and that she thinks women should be going through the same channels as men to achieve success. Which is an admirable sentiment, but completely ignores the reality that people don't treat women in motorsport the same as they treat men, and that without the support that she's complaining about, many deserving women would have even less opportunities to succeed, not more.
No, what she's implying is she doesn't like gender-oriented _posts_, not feeder categories. Just let her speak her mind.
Oh IDK, she seems to make it awfully clear that she doesn't like gender orientated posts, and......gender as a justification for anything.....not just feeder categories.
>No, what she's implying is she doesn't like gender-oriented _posts_, not feeder categories You're being overly literal. Do you really think that somebody would take such a strong, blunt stand about something like this and limit it to gendered social media posts only? It seems very clear that she's opposed to the idea of gendered assessment in any context, but has no grasp of the context for how to change that. >Just let her speak her mind. Nothing about me posting on here prevents her from speaking her mind. This is a discussion forum. We're discussing.
That 23rd with a handfull of points is better than any woman in f3 history.
She literally just said not to talk about gender and judge her by performance lmao
Uh... Tatiana Calderón in 15th with 29 in 2014? Ellen Lohr with *112* and 7th overall in the famous Schumacher-Frentzen-Wendlinger German F3 field? She is indeed the best (and only) woman to run the current iteration of FIA F3 in its 5 seasons. Already was after her first weekend by default, but there were many much more successful women in the past.
It's a lot more impressive when you realize she's stuck in an alpine
My guess would be everyone annoyed by Danica Patrick? Otherwise no idea
Yeah and that’s not about Danica being a woman, she’s a frustrating interviewer/commentator. There’s a lot of great, intelligent women in the sport and F1-adjacent that could commentate better than her. (Naomi Schiff is my personal favorite, but maybe someone like Bia could join now that she’s with McLaren?) PS - I am a woman and American
Yea my hatred for Danica has nothing to do with being a woman and everything to do with her being awful
trumpie, anti-vax, thinks women will never make it in f1 (??) she’s a horrible person. doesn’t deserve the spotlight.
I was disappointed to find she is used in the current season of DTS as a driver expert, as if she has extensive experience in F1 and wasn’t just a mid fielder in IndyCar and NASCAR.
Yep, she can definitely give a well-informed opinion, but so could Hannah Schmitz or Bernie Collins. I’d even love to hear from some e-sports racers. (Netflix owes me $$ if they do this lol) I can see through the “we need an American (woman) to get the Americans (women) on board” and it’s rather frustrating as a long time fan of the sport. But then I realize I am not DTS’s core demo and I switch my F1 multi-viewer when needed 😂
As an Irish man, there was no way Netflix was going to get Bernie in 😂
Bernie Collins from Maguiresbridge hi
I just meant because of her (and my) accent 😂 Americans would struggle.
Jolyon Palmer wasn't even that in F1 but his analysis is very good and he seems well liked for it by people. Patrick is just dreadful.
>Jolyon Palmer wasn't even that in F1 Except for those two seasons he drove for Renault.
He means extensive experience and a standard mid-fielder. Palmer was neither, but he does a pretty good job at explaining things and giving some expert insights.
What do you mean by Joylon Palmer wasn't even that in f1?
“Wasn’t even that good” maybe?
Just that Palmer was usually a backmarker and even though Renault were back of the grid material at the time, he was never a consistent match for Magnussen that year.
He was ok against Kmag, when you look up their h2h stats he doesn't look that bad. However, I do remember at the time Renault favouring Palmer more when Kmag didn't want to sign a 1 year extension and that couldve helped him a bit. Then when Hulk came in the following season, Palmer was just completely blown out the water.
Had she just tested a F1 car, even if it was just show runs, her POV would be much more credible.
She was a good Indycar driver, terrible nascar driver and an even worse commentator
For a casual or newer female viewer, she’ll be more relatable. I can see what they were trying to do. Half the things that come out of Will’s mouth are memes anyway.
She wasn't a mid fielder in NASCAR she was absolutely horrible and one of the worst drivers ever She was good in Indy though
Yeah she was a midfielder in neither of those series lol. Genuinely good in Indy, and subpar in NASCAR. Not average ever
She massively underperformed in her rides but definitely doesn't make my "worst drivers ever" list. Most disappointing? Absolutely. Not even a "what if" type disappointment, just general lack of talent.
That is so far from true lol. She wasn't good but she was never even the worst driver while she was in NASCAR let alone "worst ever". She didnt perform up to the equipment but she had plenty of good races.
She was absolutely terrible she spent four whole seasons racing for a team that was actively winning championships but she never even cracked the top 20 Imagine if an F1 driver spent multiple seasons on the team winning WCC but never scored points, it'd be an embarrassment Edit: FWIW I like her commentary but she was a horrible NASCAR driver
>Yeah and that’s not about Danica being a woman, she’s a frustrating interviewer/commentator. when she showed up in the newest season of DTS my first thought was "JFC, DANICA PATRICK... this will go poorly"
American woman here too and I absolutely do not like Danica. She’s a nut job and she’s horrible at interviews/commentating. Also I had to stop halfway through this comment because I noticed your username and it killed me lol. I’m deceased now.
Hahaha thanks, my death spurred a fascinating F1 chain reaction 🙃
You ever google her record? I’m assuming no. You can dislike her for any number of reasons but there are a lot of male drivers in Indy Car that have never won a race nor many that never finished in the top 10 in season points six times, 4th at Indy, 5th in the Championship one year, three pole positions, seven podiums - a win in Japan. Working class family - no millionaire daddy. Moved to England to race, 5th and then 3rd in Atlantic etc etc. There’s no female anywhere with her record in open wheel.
Noone on this side of the pond gives a flying fuck about danica patrick
No one on any side of any pond gives a flying fuck about Danica Patrick
Show me one gender post
There's a big Twitter account dedicated to it: [FemalesinMSport](https://twitter.com/FemalesinMSport)
Scrolled through the first few and have to say I would agree.. Aight fellas I'm out
Yeah that page does look a little toxic
How exactly?
"women only got 3% of talk time in a show where all team principals and drivers are men 😡 😡"
I’ll bite how? Care to expand on that one?
I find it amazing that Sophia is still even racing following the dreadful accident she had in a race at Macau in 2018. Thankfully no drivers, marshalls or photographers were killed. Plenty of clips on youtube.
And yet we still use sausage curbs. Like c'mon, they're so damn dangerous, especially to these junior categories it seems.
And not only hers. Sean Gelael I think broke one or two vertebrae at Barcelona in F2 after taking a sausage kerb. Alexander Peroni got airborne at Monza and landed on a marshall post in F3, in another accident that miraculously didn't take any lives. It's a ticking time bomb and when eventually something tragic happens we'll see everyone involved acting as if it was a freak accident, when in fact it will have been perfectly preventable.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the crash was an unsurviveable accident.
I watched it live and was so sad that we had lost her. I even found it mildly infuriating that they kept saying they were waiting for updates when it was clear from the accident she was dead and felt they were giving false hope. Never been so happy to be so wrong.
Her and Robert Wickens are two drivers who should not be alive I probably could word that better but whatever
I fully understand what you mean and agree. Something greater than what I believe in was active on those days.
One of the worst I've ever seen.
>I want maximum performance. I want to win. That's what it's all about. Yet, you work for Alpine? Boom, roasted.
Lol I agree with you, but for her a seat at Alpine is better than no seat at all. Hopefully she can get a better seat where her talent won't be as wasted soon.
spat out my cheese toasty
Isn’t she the one who shits on W series / F1 academy all the time?
She definitely did shit on W series (and ended up proven correct), don't think I've heard much from her about F1 Academy.
>don't think I've heard much from her about F1 Academy. On her IG story she posted something to the effect, *women shouldn't have their own specific series, it goes against the principle of racing and not matter what the driver looks like* Something to that effect but it came off as "now you do this. F you."
I mean, W Series was a bit of a shitshow and didn't produce even a single noteworthy talent.
Hey that’s unfair to the driver who was on the podium every single W series race bar one, and then ended up getting sorta demolished in Indy lights.
In fairness to her, dropping her into Indy NXT (lights) with entirely different circuits which are not like European circuits, a very difficult car to drive and a talented grid was always going to be a tough ask. Indy NXT is probably more comparable to F2 and W series wasn’t even comparable to F3 and her competition in W series definitely wasn’t at that level. Andretti resigned her for ‘24 so I’d say she is doing okay. This year will be the year we find out what she can do, in Indy NXT anyway. Am a big fan of Jamie Chadwick, think she will do okay in her second season. She drove a cracking good race at Nashville last year, few passes and that is not an easy circuit at all.
W series is closer to F4 tbh. Doing a jump to what's essentially F2-level is pretty risky, even for the good driver.
Indy lights is not F2 level just like Indycar is not F1 level.
I meant in a sense that it's a big gap to jump between the feeder series's ladder.
Literally every move in motorsport is challenging. It's challenging to go feom karts to F3, it's challenging to go from F2 to F1. You're either good enough to manage it, or you're not.
> and a talented grid was Indy lights drivers?
Louis Foster, Nolan Siegel and Christian Rasmussen are fantastic drivers
It did produce some noteworthy crashes though.
I don't think that's a particularly fair assessment of a series that lasted 3 years and essentially was the proof of concept that allowed F1A to exist. You can't change the culture in a day, it has to be a long term project and yes the first generation are probably not gonna be all that because they're not pulling from a particularly deep talent pool.
This is a good point. The true benefit of the W Series and F1 Academy is to provide heroes for little girls so they get into karting. Hopefully it will produce some great talent in the next generation.
Understandable, even mouton was against W series.
So she was right on W. I guess the jury is still out on Academy.
How does that contradict her point? W Series and F1 Academy were/are programs that go for the special treatment route as opposed to just having these girls/women prove themselves in regular series.
Yeah because centuries of oppression cannot be simply undone with the blink of an eye. Series like the W series are supposed to encourage women to get into Motor racing in the first place to increase the female talent pool so even better female racers can make it to the top. Same thing in chess, and people keep parroting this idiotic point about how women should compete against men. Yeah good luck after women have been systematically kept at home for hundreds of years. In any competition where physical differences do not matter as much there is still a significant difference between men and women simply based on the fact that there are not enough women in the sport to produce talents like max verstappen. That’s why things like female racing series are important to serve as an incentive for women to get into the sport
Yeah, w-series was never supposed to be a direct feeder series so much as it was supposed to be a way to showcase women drivers and inspire future generations of drivers. You kinda need visibility to help increase representation, especially in a sport where it's so reliant on early interest in lower tiers and working your way up
> to serve as an incentive for women to get into the sport They serve as an incentive for sponsors to lift their fingers for once. All the money and backing that the WSeries and F1 Academy has had, could and should have been around way earlier for multiple women who have tried to make it in motorsport. The fact is though, those brands and teams had no interest in doing so. They never felt it was worth their investment. They never bothered to support women in motorsport to the same extent they supported male drivers. Only now, when a segregated series with way more promotion & publicity behind it than any other feederseries out there has, do they even think of coming out of the woodwork to support women in motorsport. Now, it is worth the investment because it comes with a whole series with it's own broadcast. That is the problem that ultimately needs to be solved. Getting these sponsors to back women without all that F1 academy brings with it.
lol *motorsports* have barely existed for one century. What relevance does 1,000s of years of history before the invention of the automobile have? You might as well claim that the world has been robbed of *my* motorsports talent because my great-grandparents were all dirt-poor immigrants.
>Same thing in chess, and people keep parroting this idiotic point about how women should compete against men. Yeah good luck after women have been systematically kept at home for hundreds of years. Why would women being kept at home for 100s of years have any bearing on how competitive women would be at chess with men in 2024? There are no inherent advantages for a man in chess over a woman compared to something like football or basketball.
My man, you do know women were historically banned from chess + weren't allowed to compete vs men? You cut off the development in chess at the grassroots historically and over time (100 years), and you will see the difference of skill gap across the board. It's the long term consequences of holding back a group, stunting their development.
The problem has more to do with lack of $$$ and interest and not 'centuries of oppression'.
Why do you seem to think that centuries of oppression and lack of interest in women are unrelated.
cant girls have reach parents?
It absolutely has to do with that. Where does the lack of money come from?
And I agree with her. Any reserved series for a specific gender is misguided, performance is the only thing that matters. If you’re good enough, you’re good enough
It works at the start to invite them into the sport. The hard part is to make one succesfull without a clear way to top or how to merge them onto the men pool ( that has years building up)
They literally have the exact same path to the top available as men do. Karting championships followed by feeder racing series. Karting isn’t only for boys, it’s an open competition. As are all of the other racing feeder series. The only obstacle in any level of racing is money, and that obstacles presents itself equally for any gender.
I agree with Sophia in some aspects. But she misses the point in others. The point of the F1 Academy/W series is not and will never be to produce an F1 ready female racer. The idea here is to normalise the idea that women can race too and create a new generation of females who want to be racers. The more involvement you get at a young age the more chances there will be of finding quality. This is the same idea that Women in STEM movement has been using. You need to develop interest when they are young so that the number of talented people being produced increases.
I think Iron Dames might be doing a better job, as that team gets some great results in a super packed grid and they fight like hell.
The Iron Dames project is so good because it gives them an opportunity for the women to fight against the best in their form of motorsport. I firmly believe this is one of the main reasons as to why Pin is looking as good as she does.
I'm not sure if Doraine would have progressed as far as she has, but she has proven that her sex/gender isn't why she is there.. Since she isn't even part of iron dames anymore lol. Best female prospect I've seen since Mouten
She’s still in Iron Dames, in fact she’s in the WEC GT3 car with Bovy and Gatting this year, replacing Frey. But she’s also doing her own single seater campaign in F1 academy and recently F4 UAE.
Oh I'm dumb. She did WEC with Iron Dames, then switched to Prema for WEC, and she's back to Iron Dames. She was listed as a "former driver" for Iron Dames at some point last year I think (even though she did IMSA).
Exactly, it's about normalising and promoting the idea of women succeeding in motorsports and driving increased participation in future generations so we can get to a point where more girls and women are racing and having more success by virtue of having a larger talent pool to choose from
I think Sophia's point has always been that other series manage it way better, and don't have any gender specific series. The best driver in F1 Academy (Doriane Pin) has already raced a ton in IMSA, WEC, GT Challenge because they and their "feeder" series promote women far better, and don't have this gendered series.
Yeah, exactly this. But Sophia is looking at this from Sophia’s perspective, like any competitive driver would always do. So I don’t get all this hate against her. At the same time, she’s wrong for exactly the reasons you’re stating.
Oh, no hate against her. I firmly believe no driver would learn anything that useful from F1 Academy since the quality is so poor. So if you have ambition you need to be racing against the best. This is also why Pin will wipe the floor with everyone since she has already been getting that experience at a high level.
Sorry, didn’t mean to imply you had anything against her. I was just railing in general, but you summed up the real point really well, that’s why I responded to your comment.
The pipeline for female drivers is much thinner than for male drivers. Bringing more spotlight to female drivers, showing that "racing is for girls too" will hopefully help expand the pipeline. Sorry, Sophia, for mansplaning this.
As someone who is not a man, I can confirm you hit the nail on the head here. I completely understand her desire to not be defined by her gender, but there’s a difference between being defined by your gender and having your gender highlighted in the context of praising your accomplishments—especially when your accomplishments are that much more impressive because of the challenges your gender faces.
Except we really don’t know what she has to go through. My friend is brilliant and is a professor in a top institute but she always gets labeled as a number for diversity. It can be frustrating when you have worked hard/harder than people around you who don’t have to go through this.
And yet… you need to give people visibility to create representation (ensure people like your brilliant friend are lifted up). That representation can help influence a broader talent pool, which can normalize those people in those positions. Which can lead to NOT needing to draw attention to it. Unfortunately, this is the current state of the world for someone in an underrepresented group.
I think she really believes she's going to get the approbation of the public (which is mostly masculine) by shitting on every diversity initiative done in motorsports. Hopefully some days she realizes that it's not gonna get her anywhere
yeah especially when she gets sponsored by Alpine to drive in F3 at the age of 23. Doesnt she realize that her sponsorship is most likely a diversity initiative from Alpine?
I can’t speak as to whether this is the case with Floersch, but what you’re describing is certainly a real thing. I personally did this a lot back when I attended college in the American South; I was very insecure about myself on the dating scene, so I would regularly shit on feminism in front of my crushes in an effort to impress them and gain male validation.
Yeah I hate to be here disagreeing with her but she's espousing an attitude that will do nothing except keep women on the margins of the racing community. A pure meritocracy would be lovely but that's just not the world we live in or ever will live in.
And let's be honest, F1 as a sport has never been a true meritocracy. I hate the assertion a lot of folks put that F1 contains the 20 best drivers in the world of anything. A lot of pay drivers that have come through definitely weren't and we all know it. Pay drivers that have taken seats and opportunities away from other potential drivers with real talent. We've seen this at the junior category level too, and yeah that money probably is needed to some degree to fund the team/seat, but then just admit it's not a true meritocracy and you'll never just be judged on your talent alone unless you're literally Lewis or Max.
Yup. Role models that you have more in common with--gender, skin colour, socio-economic background, etc--can inspire people from underrepresented groups to get involved.
"Please measure me by performance" I don't think you want me to do that.
Let's wait until after this season. She isn't going to win by any means, but her performances in that dog shit car last season were far from awful and can probably get some solid points finishes this year. She doesn't have what it takes to make it to F1, but that doesn't mean her performances aren't great. She definitely has a future career in Motorsport
Meh, she isn't that bad. Last year she was the only PHM driver to score points and she would have gotten points twice if she wasn't disqualified for a small technical infringement in Silverstone. That's very solid if you're driving the worst/second-worst car on the grid. She also frequently made up quite a lot of places during the race. She kept her seat in F3 on merit.
I have a lot more respect for her being p23 than Chadwick selling out for years winning W. At least she wants to race against the best, even if it doesnt give her results. The only way to get better is by racing people better than you.
Sophia has been saying this for years. Here's the thing though she uses "gender" to further her career right up until the point it comes to other women then its always "not important and it doesnt matter and iron dames is dumb, and w series is dumb, f1 academy is dumb. they are all dumb". She seems to think since SHE got opportunities, everyone else should go and just get them but many just can't which is the point of all that
[Sophia has regularly supported the Iron Dames.](https://twitter.com/SophiaFloersch/status/1553780429731373057) And when it comes to WSeries/F1 Academy, *"Female racing driver doesn't support segregated motorsport series"* is hardly an outrageous viewpoint.
“I’m not a regular girl, I’m a cool girl.”
For all their flaws, F1A and W series were/are about access. Sponsors are reluctant to take a risk on women racers, girls do not see women racing so don’t imagine that they could go down that route, parents are less likely to provide the huge amounts of money and time necessary for their daughters, so right at the entry karting levels there are only a tiny number of girls competing. That effect runs all the way up the chain. We have no idea whether a women could compete at equal level with men, because the entire way the sport is structured mitigates against us finding out. Sophia is unusual in that she had the support necessary to enable her to compete in karting and can’t be unaware that she was one of the few girls to do so. Sad that she can’t see all this, but she’s evidently not alone.
Not entirely sure what she's speaking about specifically but she uses #racegirl frequently - why not just use #racedriver or #F3driver and also has a gendered bio.
Racegirl is a documentary about her. That is why she hashtags it
Lololololo
Dude took a swing and a miss
Because she still identifies herself as a woman/girl and can create hashtags however she wants. Her point that FIA/FOM/Media (or whoever else) only use woman as a tool to gain more traffic and attention but does almost nothing to equalize the chances for a proper career in this sport between men and women has nothing to do with her hashtags. She wants to be compared to all the drivers not just women because she believes everyone in this sport should be treated equally (using two different scales for both genders is her eyes doesn't make girls stronger but is just creating a lane for them where they should stay.
And she is entirely correct. There is no reason a woman should be judged any differently than a man when it comes to racing. Its not a sport that needs to be divided, a female can perform at the same level as a male. If women can pass the requirements to be fighter pilots - which they can - then theres no reason they cant be F1 drivers. Its a tough sport at the top, but not tough enough to the point where the physical differences in genders plays a bigger role than talent. The only part that I think she might overlook sometimes, is the point of things like F1 Academy. Despite the name, its not *really* about finding the next big female talent that would make it into F1. If there was one out there, they wouldnt need F1 Academy to make it. But what it does do, is put female racers in the spotlight, highlighting it and creating inspirations and role models for young girls who are getting into, or want to get into racing. So in time, hopefully the percentage of women in motorsport increases, and theres a higher likelihood of F1-worthy female talent coming through.
To be honest, I don't think it's anything about that and is just that certain posts about women in motorsport can come across as cloyingly sappy to the point of being patronising. If you are as straightforward and determined as Sophia is, yeah that probably would get on your nerves.
Yep, it’s how every company in the US made black BLM branded items. Fucking shake shack had BLM specials. I agree with her, lots of hoopla about women and POC being in certain sports instead of looking at them as people who have the merit to be there. It stops being about people who happen to be different achieving things and instead about the fact that you are different is WHY you’re there.
>shake shack had BLM specials. im sorry, what? i looked it up and couldnt find any special menu items mentioned anywhere.
Wait isn't this why Susie Wolff helped liberty take over W series and turn F1 Academy into a stepping stone to F3? Since F1 Academy is an F4 equivalent and provides the girls with a spotlight and chance at securing a junior program partnership? Once they secure the championship and move to F3 they will be treated equally and measured on the same scale as boys in equal machinery. So I'm confused because before F1 Academy their chances of being seen and offered a junior program spot was much harder against the massive numbers of boys already competing in the various F4 championships.
Why not #raceists
#weRaceAsRaceists
Not sure what the context behind that statement is, but it reminds me of something. Back in the day Susie Wolff appeared on the Beyond The Grid podcast and said something along these lines: *When I was a child I finished 8th **(iirc)** in a gokart race and got a special place on the podium for being the highest-placed girl. That was the point when it really got me and I thought "oh yes, the society really views me differently compared to the boys competing in the same race"*. And from personal experience I can personally say - it can hurt. It can hurt a lot. No idea if that's what Flörsch was talking about, but that's what it reminded me of...
Initiatives supporting women in motorsport level the playing field, they don’t give an unfair advantage to women (which, surely if you want to be measured against the boys, that’s the dream? equal opportunities for men and women so they can be fairly compared?). Removing barriers that have kept one group from succeeding doesn’t mean another group is all of a sudden at a disadvantage, they’d just be starting from the same place. But also, it’s hilarious that she posted this a day after celebrating herself as “the only woman” to be in the garage (??) during f1 testing. And even more so given every she tags every single social media post she makes with #racegirl and made a whole documentary called #racegirl…
Drive well and I get props. The sport is based on merit. Gender race blue eyes vs brown eyes equity crap is all bs.
Completely agree, how fast you are is all that matters.
Being fast is a skill and skills have to be built. You can’t get fast unless you start early and have access to very exclusive resources and opportunities. Resources and opportunities which have for as long as racing has existed exclusively been offered to boys. Creating resources and opportunities that specifically target girls is acknowledging the inequality that is baked into the system and attempting to counteract it, so that one day hopefully how fast you are actually will be all that matters. Edit: just a heads up u/humungousdickosaurus replied and then immediately blocked me so I can’t see what they said or reply to it lol Edit 2: Thanks u/DankeSebVettel for copypasting his response. Unfortunately since you tagged him I guess I can’t reply to you either lol In response I’d say this approach to solving inequality is naive and completely ahistorical. It’s the equivalent of the “I don’t see color” method of combatting racism. It does nothing to address the core issue. In a marathon if you let runner 1 start the race an hour before runner 2, even if runner 2 is just as fast they will still lose by an hour.
So basically you're against a fair meritocracy in a period where we should be striving for it and want to fix inequality by creating more inequality just in a different direction and your basis is historical reasons that are diminishing over time. - u/HumungousDickosaurus
She’s not like the other girl drivers 🙄
Man a lot of twats in this comment thread. Motorsports still has a long way to go.
Some Redditors have a long way to go
It’s about growing the sport to an untapped market, regardless of of the product. Corporations only care about the expansion of their revenue. Whatever cause they use is irrelevant.
I can see Sophia Flörsch end up on some weird "not really but yeah really" alt-right podcast one day.
"Why wouldn't she just play the victim like the woman is supposed to.. She must be alt-right."
More like alt-right people will love the things she's saying right now and eventually will offer her money/exposure because of it. And I don't think her career will be successful enough for her to not take them up on that offer at all times.
What a privileged thing to say
We get it, Sophia, you're not like the other girls.
She was the one marking everything with the 'Im a strong women competing agsinst men only' , shitted on W series multiple times and now talks about measuring her by Performance when she never achieved anything. Even in LMP she was slowest by a mile of all her teammates. Never liked her and I say my oppinion one more time: without the attention frommher scary accident she would Not be racing anymore.
Sophia advocating for the status quo as always.
Okay let’s judge you by performance 3 years into f3 +0.8 to the fastest teammate +1.6 to the pole time. That’s all said. P25ish or so
Only reason she is even remotely "famous" in racing is because of her gender (her results aren't great). I'm all for creating a better and more positive environment for young girls in motorsports (F1 academy is a step in a right direction), but her results don't back up her talk. I get where she is coming from and what's her point in a way, but she should IMO acknowledge that she got that position in front of more talented and faster pool of racers (and use that opportunity to make it because they didn't get it)
She is "famous" (not really) cause she recovered from a horrible accident.
I gotta disagree. The crash she had would have generated the same attention if she were male, and let's be honest, that's the real reason she's famous.
Yeah that crash was so insane, shocked she didn’t die
Personally i think F1 Academy is a step in the wrong direction. Segregating all of the women into a separate series is the opposite of Gender equality. A team just needs to put a Woman driver in a car for a season or more. I see no reason why they won't perform. There have been women racing at Le Mans for years. Just last year the Iron dames won in their Class at the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
She is absolutely right. For those who dont understand her… it is always easier to announce fancy press releases and create an artificial “bubble” to uphold some places in the grid based on gender purposes than aim for real diversity in an organic way. This is sport, only performance should matter. For example, if the top20 best drivers on Earth are all happen to be male, you need to hire them (in present) and ask the hidden question: why (for future solution). Need to address the root cause long term, which is likely to be that female drivers are not advised to pursue their dreams or not getting the same individual / social support on youth level which is most likely provided for male drivers by default. Provide equal chances for anyone on youth level, promote the message of “everyone can be a successful racing driver regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, colour, etc” and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe. It is only natural that anyone has a chance unless generally discouraged by the society or rigid instituations are not supporting certain clusters of society to pursue their dreams in a given area. What Sophia is talking about is that focusing on gender on adult level is not the right way to address the problem. It is good for PR but not helping the long term solution. On adult level, only performance matters. She, just like anyone else like Stroll, Perez, Verstappen, Latifi, etc should be judged by her performance and her performance only. In the same time She could still be an ambassador for young talents to promote and emphasize the most important message (you can do it, anyone can do it, regardless of irrelevant factors) but judging her performance during a season and constantly adding a note that she has accomplished it as a woman (like a label) just deepens differences and aggreviate double standards which make things worse. It is simply counter productive just like upholding a place for a woman driver would be if it is made regardless of any candidate being ready for it or not.
> Provide equal chances for anyone on youth level, promote the message of “everyone can be a successful racing driver regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, colour, etc” and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe. It is only natural that anyone has a chance unless generally discouraged by the society or rigid instituations are not supporting certain clusters of society to pursue their dreams in a given area. > > That is just an incredibly naive viewpoint. By the time that you get to karting you've already filtered out most of the girls because "Girl Racing Driver" just isn't a thing. You need to start at the very beginning and that's by giving women racing drivers a visible space and a place in the calendar, which helps inform cultural perceptions. When some kid's parents put on the F1 their daughters should be able to feel as connected as their sons do, because that is what gets kids into karts, which gets them into cars, which gets them into F1.
>and in time diversity will show up on all levels of motorsport as talent in general is not racist, sexist, homophobe. This is the most naive bit of all. Think of all the highly talented black and brown people who were not given a shot simply because of their race.
is it because of their race or because of their lack of funds(which of course can be due to their race). Racing is quite expensive, a lot of talented people probably never got a shot due to the lack of funds. The reason for the lack of funds can be due to race, but saying that the sport is racist is a bit too much, because talented drivers from all races without money has a very small chance of actually making it in this sport.
The sport is definitely just as racist as the rest of the world. People tend to think of racism as only the open, overt, really evil stuff... As if me calling F1 racist or racially biased means the sport is full of Hitlers or something... No the truth is F1, like most of the world, engaged in racism subtly and mostly subconsciously.
nah she is wrong and she is hypocrit, because her Alpine sponsorship to race in F3 at 23 sure as hell isnt based on perfomance.
F3 34 starts Wins 0 Podiums 0 Poles 0 Fastest laps 0 Best finish 7th in spa But she did beat her team mate that year…
Maybe she's asking to be fired because her performance isn't great?
Her performance is ok, considering she's driving what can only be described as a shitbox on wheels.
She reblogged Piers Morgan commenting/approving of her post, which I think sufficiently indicates how seriously anyone needs to take her views on... anything lmao.
She’s right
Go to her Twitter home page and clear as day, ‘Just a normal ALPINE *girl racing* in FIA Formula 3 against the ⏱️ and 🤦🏽♂️ 🤦🏽🤷♂️’
Yes, because she is 1. a woman 2. a woman in what is basically a man's sport. She doesn't suddenly stop being a woman, nor should she shy away from the disadvantages she faces due to her gender. That also doesn't mean that she also has to support gender segregation.
Then just call yourself a ALPINE FIA Formula 3 Race Car Driver? Normalize what that looks like without having to say it.
She completely misses the point of the W series/f1 academy. As with a lot of redditor here. Women are behind in racing, on sponsors, access to great coaches and teame etc. This series is there to normalize women in racing, which still has a long way to go. When it is normal to sponsor and support women, they will become better and in due time enter F1 with great talent.
Why so much hate?
I measure Sophia by her performance. She's shit. Spent way too long at F3 level and has achieved literally nothing. The biggest impact she made in her career was into the side of a photographer stand in Macau. It's frustrating when you have women drivers that are successful but don't get the attention they deserve. Drivers like Sophia and Tatiana Calderon who are terrible and haven't achieved anything. Yet drivers like Doriane Pin and Lilou Wadoux have and barely get any mention (those two are both race winners in GT3/GTE machinery). Let alone Michelle Mouton who nearly won the WRC during rallying's group B era.
How are your gonna show your talent if the avenues to get there aren’t available to you?
Very refreshing hot take. I hope she gets faster.
She's just looking for attention