Programs designed to support women in motorsport often walk a fine line. On one hand, visibility and opportunity matter. On the other hand, racing has always been one of the rare arenas where the stopwatch—and the results sheet—doesn’t care much about who you are.
But the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) is stepping into that space with the launch of its FIM She Leads Mentorship Programme, a new global initiative intended to support women pursuing leadership roles within motorcycling, both on and off the track. And rather than focusing solely on riders, the program casts a wider net, as it connects experienced professionals from across the sport (team leaders, officials, industry figures, and members of the broader FIM community) with aspiring women working toward careers in areas like race administration, governance, and the motorcycle industry itself.
The structure is fairly straightforward: a six-month mentorship journey pairing mentors and mentees in one-to-one relationships designed to offer career guidance, leadership development, and professional networking. According to the FIM, the program attracted more than fifty applicants from six continents, with fifteen mentor-mentee pairs ultimately selected for the pilot edition. Those participants will work together through structured sessions and development activities facilitated through the Mentorloop platform.
It’s easy to read something like this as just another cynical institutional initiative, but mentorship has long been one of the quiet forces that shape careers in motorsport.
Whether racing, engineering, media, or administration, the industry has always been built on knowledge passed down informally. Someone gives you advice about how the paddock works, how to approach a team, how to navigate the politics of a championship. Those conversations rarely make headlines, but they often determine whether someone sticks around long enough to build a career.
For women entering the space, that kind of guidance can be particularly valuable.
Motorcycling has historically been male-dominated, but the landscape has shifted dramatically over the past decade. Women are increasingly present across the sport, from racers and mechanics to journalists, engineers, and team managers. The doors are more open now than they have ever been.
At the same time, motorsport remains one of the few environments where the competitive side of the equation is fairly unforgiving. Lap times, race results, and performance tend to flatten a lot of the usual social variables. Talent, preparation, and persistence ultimately carry the most weight. That’s part of what makes mentorship programs like this so interesting, as the goal isn’t to change the competitive nature of the sport, i’s to help more people understand how to navigate it.
The FIM Women’s Commission, which helped spearhead the initiative, sees the program as a way to strengthen the long-term ecosystem of the sport by creating clearer pathways for women interested in leadership roles. By pairing emerging talent with experienced professionals, the organization hopes to foster a stronger global network across disciplines and regions.
The pilot program will run for six months, after which the FIM plans to evaluate the results and potentially expand the concept into future editions. Whether initiatives like this ultimately reshape the industry remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: motorcycling benefits when more capable people choose to stay in it. And as the sport continues to evolve globally, the real measure of success won’t be how many programs are launched, but how many talented individuals—women included—step through those doors and prove they belong there.
