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Formula 1 is reportedly working on a new all-female Championship, that might have its debut already in 2023. The Championship would be aimed at young girls aged 16 to 22 in order to help them reach higher feeder series such as F2 and F3 and eventually F1.
2023 could see the debut of a new feeder series aimed at providing opportunities for women in the sport. In particular, the Championship would focus on young female drivers, aged sixteen to twenty-two, who would then go on to race in Formula 2 and 3 to eventually reach the dream of Formula 1.
According to ESPN, this new Championship would differ from the already-existing W Series as the age range would ensure time to develop through other feeder series before reaching F1. As a matter of fact, the lack of progression to higher feeder series has been the crucial point of criticism toward the W Series.
What about W Series?
The new Championship created by Formula 1 is supposed to co-exist with the W Series. However, the difficulty in finding financial backing, which already caused the 2022 season to be stopped early with the cancellation of the final racing weekends, gives the impression that the W Series would not be able to sustain F1’s direct competition.
On the other side, it is also true that, while the average age in W Series is higher than the average age in Formula 2, the all-female Championship doesn’t lack to include young upcoming drivers such as Juju Noda (16) and Chloe Chambers (17).
Moreover, the question regarding the drivers’ age was treated by W Series as a long-term factor. Back in July, W Series CEO Catherine Bond Muir had told FormulaNerds: “I think it’s going to be many years before we get a W series driver into Formula One because I think that our current drivers don’t have the same amount of time in a car as their equivalent male counterparts do at the same age. Jamie’s age is the same as Lando Norris and George Russell and they had hundreds of times more hours in the car than she had. So, we’ve got to look at the young generations coming through karting now so they get the right from the word “go” the same amount of time in the car. “
The new Championship is set to see the light already in 2023 and the hope is that, differently from W Series, it will have the chance to change things for equal opportunities with the support of the whole motorsport world.
Headline Image: W Series Press Office