Originally Posted by
AndyL
It would be, but it's never going to happen as long as the numbers at the entry level of motorsport are so low.
As an example I just looked through a programme from a BTCC meeting this year. The number of young women in the entry level formulae (Ginetta Junior, F4 and Clio Cup) is 2 out of 56. How many of those 56 are going to make it into higher formulae like BTCC itself, or British/Euro F3? 5-10%? It's improbable that one of the 2 women will be in that top 10%, which is why the number of women in those 3 higher championships I mentioned goes down to 1 in 75. Then maybe the top 5% at the national level might have a chance of pushing on to lower international level, and 5% of those might make it to the highest international level. The probability that one of those few women at the entry level is still left in the 5% of the 5% of the 5% becomes vanishingly small.
You won't see a female driver doing well in F1 until a decade after there are a good 20% female drivers at the basic entry level. If you're expecting a female champion to inspire grass-roots participation, then you're putting the cart before the horse. The grass-roots participation needs to be inspired before the champion will be found.