Tracking the sexist abuse faced by female F1 fans

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

Nikki Lauda and James Hunt locked horns and wheels, there were terrible fatalities on the track and off, and the loud roar of the racing car engines was matched only by the testosterone-heavy swagger of the blokes in the paddock.
The macho world of F1 as seen on Netflix series Drive to Survive (Image: Courtesy of Netflix)
Lella, 34-years-old from a small town in Piedmont, Italy, had discovered her need for speed as a young delivery driver for her father's shop. Now, in only her second Grand Prix, she was about to break barriers as the first woman to score a World Championship point.
Fifty years later, she remains the only woman to have snared an F1 point.
Lella Lombardi, the only woman to win a point in an F1 race (Image: Getty Images)
Despite efforts to revamp motorsport's macho image, with a new generation of female fans hooked by Netflix series Drive to Survive and F1 Academy, which follows Scots former pro-driver Susie Wolff's all-female Formula 4-level championship, Lella's single point remains unchallenged.
With women making up the fastest growing element of new F1 fans, Hollywood arrived on the grid this week with its love letter to the sport, complete with Brad Pitt playing a grizzled racing veteran and gambling junkie, a pumping soundtrack and seven times World Champion and inclusivity campaigner Sir Lewis Hamilton as co-producer.
Fans hoping the movie might help reboot the sport's 'boys only' image however, may leave the cinema just a little disappointed.
Ferrari driver Sir Lewis Hamilton is co-producer of F1: The Movie
For while at the film's heart there is Kate, a female team technical director played by Oscar-nominated Kerry Condon, it falls to Pitt's character Sonny Hayes to show the little lady how to actually win a race and to sort out the 'shitbox' car she'd developed.
Before long she is throwing her physics degree aside to tumble helplessly into the arms of our hero.
Meanwhile, in the pit lane the eager-to-please lone young woman among the all-male team manages to fumble awkwardly with her tools during a botched tyre change, almost causing an accident.
The few other female characters pop up mainly to swoon over handsome drivers or fret over how they might get hurt.
Brad Pitt stars as washed up racing driver Sonny Hayes in F1: The Movie
Back in the real world, F1: The Movie premiered just a few days after Sky Sports F1 presenter Rachel Brookes - who has a cameo appearance in the film - revealed the 'enormous amounts of vile abuse' from so-called fans in wake of an interview with current World Champion Max Verstappen.
That followed Channel 4's motorsport presenter Lee McKenzie telling of vile abuse by trolls who targeted her looks and weight, prompting her to respond with a post highlighting health struggles.
Comments, she said, had come from 'came from women and men alike'.
All of which raises the question: is motorsport stuck in first gear when it comes to gender equality, sexism and misogyny?
And what can be done to halt the flood of online abuse towards its female fans?
Brad Pitt attends the premiere of F1: The Movie in Times Square, New York (Image: Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures)
Away from the bustle of the grid, Scottish academic and motorsport enthusiast Kimberley Wyllie is in the driving seat of new research that explores online sexism and misogyny within motor racing fandom – a problem that clearly runs deeper than Hollywood scripts.
She is one of four international women scholars chosen to carry out research at Dublin City University, in a project overseen by Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the governing body for world motorsport and the federation for mobility organisations globally.
Kimberley Wyllie's research is examining sexism and misogyny among F1 fans (Image: Contributed)
Working under the FIA's United Against Online Abuse banner, while her colleagues explore online abuse within Italian football settings, the impact of educational measures on cyber abuse and governance responses, Falkirk-raised Kimberley is analysing the rising problem of online abuse, its impact on women's engagement with the sport and, left unchecked, how it might well turn them off it.
Findings from the group's two-year research projects will be used to help to improve understanding of the impact of sexist and abusive online comments and provide a framework to drive behavioural and regulatory change.
Read more by Sandra Dick:
Kimberley's research comes at a time when F1 and motorsport in general is basking in the spotlight of global attention, with rising numbers of women taking an interest as fans and participants.
According to the F1's 2023 Gender Pay Gap Report, in 2018 the sport's gender split was 72 per cent male and 28 percent female. By 2022, the split had shifted to 69 per cent and 31 per cent.
Around 70 percent of F1's Instagram followers are women, while F1 travel specialists are said to be dealing with rising numbers of bookings from women seeking Grand Prix breaks.
Leading the way is Oban-born Susie Wolff, the former professional racing driver who took part in a practice run in an F1 car at the 2014 British Grand Prix, making her the first woman to do so since Italian driver Giovanna Amati in 1992.
Oban-born Susie Wolff heads women's racing championship F1 Academy
As managing director of all-female racing series F1 Academy and one of the sport's most influential women, she has stated her intention to see a woman in the driving seat of an F1 racer within a decade.
'I see the change, it's happening before my eyes,' Wolff said recently.
'The paddock has so many more women, in different roles and functions, but also because the world is changing – the sport has evolved with it.
'We've got a lot of momentum.'
But could online abuse, misogyny and sexist comments get in the way?
'With Drive to Survive, which came out in 2019, and the new F1 Academy series, there is a lot of discourse around females in motorsport,' says Kimberley.
'That community is one of the fastest growing fan bases within motorsport, and we don't want to lose that.
'We don't want women to come in the door and then leave after a season.
'It's about working out how we can make the space more inclusive and safer.'
Netflix series Drive to Survive has helped boost fan numbers to the sport (Image: Sofia Mishuris)
Her research is breaking fresh ground. With no existing motorsport surveys exploring the impact of online abuse on women fans, Kimberley, who has Psychology Master's and Bachelor's degrees from the University of Stirling and Heriot-Watt University, has turned to comparisons with football and rugby where women have long battled marginalisation.
While challenges in those sports often bubble up on the terraces and within the stadium, for female motorsport fans the battleground is more likely to be in the more difficult to control ether of cyberspace.
'Historically, abuse would have been at the venue, with sexist comments and remarks like 'how can you be a real fan? You are just here for the hot players or driver',' says Kimberley.
Away from the track, online abuse among F1 fans is under scrutiny (Image: Courtesy of Netflix) 'The facilities weren't there to accommodate females - stadia used to have just one gender toilets.
'Just one percent of people who follow motorsport ever attend a Grand Prix,' adds Kimberley, who is also managing editor of Women in a Man's Race Magazine.
'As things have grown, that has translated to online sphere.'
And what's shifted online appears to be increasingly hostile.
'There's a growing number of female fans, and it seems to be that there's also a large increase in the hate speech comments that they are receiving.'
Brad Pitt and F1: The Movie co-star Damson Idris during filming at Silverstone
As well as exploring the scale of the problem for women, she aims to catalogue the abuse, distinguishing between public taunts versus private threats, micro‑aggressions wrapped in 'banter', and gender‑targeted jibes - especially around intelligence and knowledge of the sport, or domestic stereotypes.
A classic example, she says, is James Bond stunt driver Jess Hawkins' 2023 Aston Martin test, the first time in five years that a woman had got behind the wheel of an F1 racing car.
Hawkins completed 26 laps in difficult wet conditions at the Hungaroring, venue of F1's Hungarian Grand Prix, to be met by vicious online comments ranging from 'women belong in the kitchen' to snide remarks over her driving capabilities and likelihood that she'd crash.
'A large chunk of those accounts were male presenting,' says Kimberley.
'When looking at the comments from female presenting accounts, it was 'hope she does well'.
'The same follows in other sports. Women are subjected to more gender-based abuse whereas the abuse against male fans or wider population is abusive in general.
'Female abuse targets their gender or perceived gender roles, their looks, stereotypes that they should be mothers and that sport isn't for them, they are 'the weaker sex'.'
Scots woman racing driver Logan Hannah on track during an appearance with F1 Academy (Image: Knockhill Racing Circuit.)
There are contradictions in male allies too, she says.
'Generally, it's dads and grandads that get girls into the sport.
'But once they are there, it can feel like they don't belong. Male fans are push them out.
'Men are often the people that bring women in, but men can be the people who put women out of sport.'
Male fans can be just as brutal and bullying towards each other.
'It seems there's an undermining aspect,' she adds. 'Male fans will typically call someone a 'real fan' if they have been there for years, if they can answer all the questions, show up wearing all the merchandise.
'They have quite a prescribed list of what makes someone a 'fan'.
'Female fans seem to be more flexible; they just want you to have an interest in it.
'A lot of the abuse comes from those different definitions.
'Because someone doesn't know what happened in, say, the 1978 season, it opens up to 'how can you be a real fan?'
'It spirals from general fan banter to more systemic abuse and hate speech.'
Racing driver Abbi Pulling features in new Netflix series F1: The Academy Online abuse within motorsport fan circles isn't only targeted at women. In recent weeks, F1 drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Jack Doohan have been at the centre of vile online comments while the FIA, F1, F2 and F3 came together in a joint statement condemning all forms of abuse and harassment.
There are fine lines between gentle jibes and abuse, Kimberley adds.
'Fans will never all get on and it would be silly to think we can do this work and everyone will be best friends afterwards.
'And sport has that competitive edge, where you can go at it against one another.
'It's about finding where that difference lies and how we make the sphere safer for people to be in.'
Read more by Sandra Dick:
Meanwhile, there are positive signs.
The FIA's United Against Online Abuse coalition was set up in 2022 by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem in response to the growing crisis of online abuse across the sporting world. It works with sports federations, national governments, regulatory bodies, and technology platforms, with the aim of fostering regulatory and behavioural change to combat the rise of online harassment and hate speech.
And initiatives like F1 Academy and More Than Equal, co-founded by ex-Formula 1 driver David Coulthard and dedicated to discovering and mentoring female talent into the sport, are paving the way for new drivers.
"It's about application," he said recently when asked if women could compete physically with men in an F1 seat.
"If you work yourself physically, then there's no physical reason a woman can't drive in F1. The rest is down to skill."
Former racing driver David Coulthard founded women drivers' campaign More Than Equal (Image: Getty) 'There are many things on going on to increase (female) participation, whether as competitors, in the workforce or as a fan of motorsport,' adds Kimberley.
'I think over time motorsport is going to become more inclusive and while I don't think we'll ever get a 50-50 split, we will get closer, and maybe females will no longer feel marginalised.
'The goal is about making it more inclusive for everyone regardless of race, gender or background.'