As a lifetime F1 fan girl, it truly feels like the last twelve months have been transformative for motorsport. You probably won't need me to tell you that for over seven decades, there's been an obvious lack of gender equality in Formula One. Yes, there were women lining the pit lanes, eagerly watching engineers in the garages, or celebrities sipping champagne on a yacht around the iconic Monaco circuit. But it felt there was a real emptiness, almost as if women were intended to be there as some sort of "decoration". Seeing a female in a race team? Almost unheard of. As for driving a car? Well, if I were to tell you more women have orbited the earth in a spaceship than have officially driven in a Formula 1 cockpit, you probably wouldn’t believe me - yet sadly it’s the truth.
Fast forward to 2025, and we've entered a new era of Formula 1, where women are finally getting the opportunities they deserve. When you switch on coverage of a race, you get to see the work of Laura Mueller, who this year became the first female Race Engineer in Formula 1 history, working with Esteban Ocon at Haas.
