Yahoo Autos Danica Patrick Really Isn't Helping Women Get Into Motorsport
This past weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix brought with it a new experiment from Formula 1: A specific, kid-friendly broadcast designed for younger audiences. Offering guidance to a broadcast crew composed of teenagers was Danica Patrick, a former NASCAR and IndyCar driver turned occasional Sky Sports F1 commentator. There was just one problem: Patrick was actively discouraging about the mere prospect of women being one day capable of racing in F1 thanks to their “feminine mind.”
During the race broadcast, a young commentator named Scarlett asked Patrick when we could see a woman racing in F1. Patrick’s answer started out fairly reasonably, as transcribed by Alanis King and confirmed myself:
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As I’ve always said in my whole career, it takes 100 guys to come through to find a good one, and then it takes 100 girls. That takes a long time to find a good one, right? It just, the odds are not in favor of there always being one or being many of them.
In this context, Patrick is absolutely correct. With fewer women in the racing ranks, finding someone of F1-level ability can be more difficult when compared to the slew of men who take up racing each year. We’ll struggle to find that really talented woman out of 100 women racers specifically because it will take longer for those 100 women to get into motorsport.
But then Patrick continued:
