There’s no escaping the reality: motorsport still has a major diversity problem. Have things improved? Almost certainly. But enough? Far from it.
All of motorsport is guilty of it and every series and discipline must do better. That’s no small task. It requires a lot of time, money and resources to be dedicated to the problem, and finding a person or an organisation with all three isn’t easy right now.
There is a lot of work going on in the background to improve diversity. More Than Equal, backed by David Coulthard, is embarking on its quest to put a female racer on the Formula 1 grid. F1 Academy is trying to give young girls a platform to help them up the junior series ladder, taking over from the dormant W Series in this regard.
Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton’s Ignite Partnership is trying to bring people from underprivileged, non-white backgrounds into motorsport across all areas. Racing Pride is shining a light on those within the motorsport world who are part of the LGBTQ+ community and trying to overturn decades-old stereotypes and exclusionary viewpoints along the way.
Motorcycle racing is arguably the industry within motorsport with the most growth to do. Over the last two years, the Motorsport Network ran the F1 fan survey and MotoGP fan survey. Female participation in the former was 18.3% of the total sample. That’s still a paltry response, but in the MotoGP survey that figure was just 13%. More Than Equal's own research found that, of the 13,000 people surveyed, only 22% felt women could compete head-to-head with men in MotoGP, while that number dropped to 19% for World Superbikes compared to Formula E on 38% and F1 on 51%.
Earlier this year, the FIM announced that in 2024 it is aiming to begin the FIM Women’s Motorcycling World Championship. This is being touted by FIM president Jorge Viegas as a “final destination” for female riders, rather than a stepping stone – suggesting the governing body sees no future in which a woman can race at the highest levels of motorcycle racing, such as MotoGP and World Superbikes. Or perhaps it simply doesn’t want to make the effort.
Given Ana Carrasco scored a historic world championship in the World Supersport 300 class in 2018, the FIM’s initiative falls laughably short of where motorcycle racing needs to be aiming.
Source: Autosport