Be it the W-Series or the FMSCI’s Women in Motorsport commission doubling down on their efforts – motorsport is starting to take gender diversity more seriously. And to further push that cause here at home, AutoGuru India has brought the Formula Woman initiative to our country.
So just what is Formula Woman India? We caught up with AutoGuru India co-founder and CEO Ativ Shah to bring you all the details.
What is Formula Woman?
Formula Woman is a UK initiative that seeks out women from across the world who are passionate about motorsport – both, on-track racing and behind-the-scenes activities. You can think of it as a community with registered members being invited to track days, training sessions, race meetings and more.
As part of this initiative, Formula Woman has launched a campaign to find “the next female motor racing champion”. After multiple assessment rounds, drivers who finally get selected will get to race McLaren GT4 cars as part of the UK GT Cup championship next year. And this campaign has now been expanded to India.
Explaining why he wanted to bring this to India, Shah says, “Motorsport here is dominated by men. That creates a big issue when it comes to an inclusive community for women – both in the automotive and motorsport industry. What Formula Woman as a platform aims to do is create an inclusive community for women to enter the world of motorsport.”
He also highlights that the initiative is targeting the grassroots; you don’t need to be a well-established racer or even have a professional racing/competition licence to join. All you need is a valid driver’s licence and a passion for motorsport.
“If you don’t give a good enough and equal platform to all athletes to express their love for sport, how are you going to know who the person is with good talent and skills? That’s exactly what Formula Woman wants to do; they want to give women an opportunity across all age groups to enter the world of motorsport at a very basic and easy level,” Shah explains.
He adds, “What Formula Woman, globally as a platform, is looking for is women with natural driving skills who can be trained and groomed to become professional race drivers.”
Formula Woman India assessment
Organisers successfully held the first-ever Formula Woman India assessment event on November 23-24 at Erda’s Speedway in Vadodara. A total of 24 participants entered and Shah points out that it was a diverse array of women from across the country – the youngest participant being 21-years-old and the oldest being 62. While the mix included a few racers, there were also college-going students, mothers and others who entered.
The assessment itself covered a variety of areas – driving both karts and stock cars around an obstacle course, physical fitness, a written test for driving and motorsport knowledge, as well as a media test to gauge how the participants respond to the camera and media questions.
Shah explains the ideology behind this, “It is important for any athlete to have a good balance of complementing your on-track skills with your off-track skills. It’s brilliant that you have driving talent, but it doesn’t really matter if you can’t market yourself well enough to grow further in your career.”
AutoGuru India has also tied up with Automotive Skill Development Council for this. So, a variety of experts across multiple fields were present to evaluate the participants. The judges panel included prominent racers like Chetan Shivram and Akshay Gupta, as well as other industry experts.
The three winners of this assessment round should be announced by December end, following which they will fly down to the UK to compete against 47 women selected from around the world. After a series of eliminations, 12 women will make it to the shootout round.
From these, the winners will get a chance to race in the 2022 UK GT Cup, behind the wheel of a McLaren GT4 racer. These winners will also undergo full training and coaching prior to taking to the grid. It’s a massive opportunity to not just break into the professional motorsport circuit, but to do so in a well-known series with a renowned manufacturer.
What is the future of Formula Woman India?
This year’s edition, and likely next year’s too, will focus only on seeking out racers. Shah, however, does say that for next year, they’re looking at significantly increasing Formula Woman India’s footprint. Organisers had limited time to get everything in place for this year, but next year’s edition will focus on even more regional localities. “This increases the talent pool not only for Formula Woman India, but also for the motorsport ecosystem as a whole,” says Shah.
There are also plans in place for the 2022 edition to be broadcasted live – either through TV or online streaming. Additionally, AutoGuru India is also looking at expanding this to other parts of Asia.
And it doesn’t stop there. As mentioned earlier, Formula Woman wants to encourage more women to join all areas of motorsport. In line with that overall goal, Shah says, “A lot can be done. We want to build this gradually. It’s a community. It’s starting with drivers right now, but we are also, in the years to come, going to expand to engineers, marketers, etc.”
He also admits that in the long run, Formula Woman India will just be a small part of what will need to be a common vision across the auto industry to result in genuine change. “At the end of the day it’s not just one AutoGuru India that can do anything, we need the entire industry and ecosystem to move together on this,” he says, adding that the best way to do this would be to focus on the grassroots first, before scaling up.