When I think of strong women I truly idolise and look up to, Susie Wolff is high on my list. I have so much respect for her as she continues her fight to bring more women into Formula 1. As someone who has lived and breathed the sport, she understands the daily struggles and battles women face in being taken seriously in F1, even as fans, let alone as drivers.
It often feels as though everyone is just waiting for women who race to fail. And believe me, there are plenty of men who have not deserved their seats, where talent and money seem to blur into a grey area.#
The success of launching the W Series and the continued growth of the F1 Academy have helped keep the presence of women in the paddock visible and the conversation about getting women into F1 loud and clear. I truly believe that one day a woman will race in Formula 1 again, following in the footsteps of Desiré Wilson, Lella Lombardi and Maria Teresa de Filippis. And at the forefront of that pioneering movement will be Susie Wolff.
So of course I jumped at the chance to attend an Evening with Susie Wolff, well, afternoon as it was, the matinee performance. Let’s just say it didn’t disappoint
Susie has recently written her book Driven, which goes through her life and career in racing. What I found really interesting is this wasn’t her first idea for a book. In fact, she wasn’t really sold on her story being written, due to her only being in her 40s. She thought it wouldn’t be enough time to make an interesting story. But every editor and publishing house she went to wanted this to be her first story.
The original idea was to write a children’s book, where the story would revolve around a young girl who was a racing driver. She wanted young girls and boys to see that this was a normal thing and to encourage other young girls to see that racing isn’t just for boys. I thought this was a lovely idea, given the current slow change in views. This was apparent given the story she told about her young son Jack, who is also a karting driver, who told her a girl in his category called Greta was the one to beat one weekend. No longer was there an embarrassment of being beaten by a girl, like there would have been back when Susie was driving, but more of an equal competitor.
However, this book wouldn’t be published or written until her story was written first. Naturally, Susie felt that in order to do this book justice she had to go back home, where everything began. With the help of her brother, they began to write her journey. Like all brothers do, he was very helpful and somewhat critical, calling certain drafts Susie wrote boring. Typical, and if you have a brother you know how honest and blunt they can be. Well, to a point, as I’m sure older brothers know the consequences of annoying and pissing off a little sister. This, however, adds an authenticity to her book.
She spoke about her early years and her time throughout racing and how her gender was always the topic of interviews. In fact, she only had one interview in her career that wasn’t about her gender, a fact which would annoy anyone. Navigating a career where you are more than likely to be the only female on track was hard, especially when she mentioned being ignored by a lot of influential people, like Niki Lauda, which she never let him live down. But as she began to rise and got offered 25 laps in a car by Sir Frank Williams, that all started to change. She also very humbly credits her husband, and as she said her biggest critic, Toto Wolff, in helping her with her career. As she said, if Frank Williams wants to impress him by giving her a chance to drive an F1 car, lucky her. Although, it was her pure speed and impressive race craft that actually gained her a drive at Williams and a new role created as development driver, a role that wasn’t a thing back in those days, which is now vital to a team’s success.
Speaking of her relationship with Toto, the audience and myself found it very funny how blunt and encouraging he was. In 2014, Susie was the first woman in over 22 years to participate in an F1 weekend, with a stint in Free Practice One for Williams. This was definitely a sink or swim scenario, as we’ve seen recently when poor Kimi Antonelli crashed in his first ever F1 session. Thankfully he was able to redeem himself and went on to become one of Mercedes’ F1 drivers. Just as Susie was about to leave Toto in the paddock to go to the Williams motorhome, Toto turned to her. She thought here comes the big pep talk. Instead, just three words were uttered: “Don’t be shit.” Brilliant advice, Toto. However, this spurred Susie on to show him how shit she wasn’t.
It was this work ethic and tenacity that saw Susie Wolff become better and reach a high level of respect throughout her past and present time in the racing world. This was very apparent when she was given the task of becoming team principal at the Rokit Venturi racing team, a team haemorrhaging money with little success. Under her leadership, the team had their most successful year to date, which eventually led her to become CEO of the team.
Of course, we can’t talk about Susie Wolff without mentioning her efforts to bring diversity to the track. She helped to form initiatives such as Dare to be Different and Girls on Track. Her latest is the F1 Academy, where she was head-hunted by Stefano Domenicali, F1’s CEO and President, to lead the charge. It became apparent that, as sponsors were not picking up for the series, she needed to get the F1 Academy involved in big F1 weekends. She worked tirelessly to gain the support of the F1 teams to help with the finances. Funnily enough, Toto wasn’t onboard at the beginning but later came around after the majority of the F1 teams agreed.
I also enjoyed that Susie didn’t hold back in the book, which I can’t wait to read. She said she left some uncomfortable and difficult times in her book, because that’s what she experienced. Bravely, she mentioned a time when everyone else had gone out partying, and she had chosen to go to her hotel room and sleep. A prominent gentleman involved in F1 kept trying to call her and get into her room at 2am. Clearly, his intentions were less than honourable at the time. However, she had no one to tell, and back then no one would have believed her—very different to how it is now. Again, this showed how her gender was once again being used against her.
After the interval, the Q&A session began. During the break, audience members were able to send in questions by scanning a QR code on the big screen behind the stage. Over 200 questions were submitted. Only a handful were able to be asked, but they were thought-provoking and a little humorous too. I really enjoyed this section, as Susie went into great detail, giving thorough and insightful answers.
We may even have seen a future F1 Academy star in Daisy Thompson, who asked Susie how she could get her to remember her name. Answer: drive fast. The competition for F1 Academy sees 37 drivers fight it out for their positions. We also learned that Toto is a terrible passenger, and Susie is 100% the better and faster driver.
We then came to the end of the show, where I hung on her every word. If the seat hadn’t been so uncomfortable, I could have listened for days to the stories surrounding her life and career. She then very kindly stayed to sign people’s books, including mine, which was lovely. I was totally starstruck. I stood next to my idol. AHHH, my year was made by this.
If you ever get the chance to see Susie Wolff, I would recommend doing so. This is also the second time I’ve been to this style of event, and I have to say I’ve really enjoyed them. It’s a unique way of getting a different perspective from the usual media-trained two-minute interviews, giving a much more personal insight, with anecdotal stories and more detail on how books are created.
Have you been to one of these events? Or met an idol? Good or bad, let us know down in the comments.
Sincerely,
Catherine
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