I think Bernie Ecclestone's recent statement with regards to setting up a separate all-female F1 championdhip is quite sad really as I believe there must be women out there who have the ability to compete with men on equal terms and beat them.
I learnt this first hand when I recently competed in an arrive and drive, 40 minute endurance race at Daytona Milton Keynes. Before these events, looking around, you can tell those drivers that are regular karters and who may actually be good, from the fact that they come along all fully decked out in their own racing gear. So it was the case when I saw two drivers present at the event, with the one wearing the more impressive kit (i.e. more complete and expensive) actually being a girl. Now when I see a girl dressed in proper racing gear I know that they must be half-decent because girl's egos aren't as big as blokes who may be fooled into thinking that just because they look the part, they are the real deal (this tends to happen a lot in life actually). Whereas if a girl has bought decent kit, you know she has done so because she is serious about the sport and probably has invested a lot of time and effort into it, part of which is the purchasing of proper racing gear. To be honest, when I see blokes coming all dressed up, it actually makes me more determined to beat them and I often do... (that's my ego talking now!)
However, this girl I raced was in another league as once the race started (I qualified 3rd), I could see from just the first 3 or 4 corners that she was already able to start pulling away fairly significantly. Now when you go to an arrive and drive event, there is no equalisation of weights through the addition of ballast, which is something I normally benefit from being a smaller bloke and this girl was undoubtedly lighter than me (so was the guy who qualified in 2nd), thus benefitting from a weight advantage. But even so, the performance difference was too large to be just that! Needless to say, for the first time in such an event, I was actually lapped and the girl in question actually obtained the lap record during the race... Very impressive Stephanie!
There is Danica Patrick in America who competes with the boys and regularly beats them and we have Susie Wolff and now Carmen Jorda in F1 as test drivers. Surely someone can break through into F1 and show that it can be done?! A recent article about Stirling Moss' sister caught my attention too (link here) who regularly beat her male competitors in rallying, which again highlights the point that it can be done and should be possible if the right lady were to come along...
