Mm-hmm

... as to how we turn up.

And I, I went through that battle.

You know, if, if I was too feminine, well, would I be taken seriously? Would they think I meant business? If I didn't make an, a, an effort on my appearance, then okay, that wouldn't be great for the, the kind of whole commercial side of the sport.

So it was a real balancing act kind of going through that, and I'm just grateful that the environment I grew up with really gave me that solid foundation.

And I think culturally in the sport, we've seen a huge shift in the last five years where there are more women and it's more acceptable.

The environment isn't as macho and male-dominated, and F1 Academy is playing a big part in that change.

[laughs]

How do you do that when there's so many opinions around you, whether it's even from your family or in your workplace or from your boss or from p- people that know you and believe in you, but your idea of what the future is looks different to theirs?

That's a really good point and, and also the, the bombardment of social media that shows us other people's achievements and other people's successes, and then this idea that you compare yourself a lot.

I have always been someone that kind of sticks to my own path.

I, and I think as you age and as you get more confident and you become a mother, I get really good at saying no.

I know what brings me joy in my life, and I know what would be great on paper, but I know just doesn't, I don't have capacity for.

Um, so I guess I got really good at defining what I, I d- what I didn't want my life to look like.

But I wouldn't say that there was always this clarity of what came next.

How do you as a mom, right, who's been through it, who's, uh, I mean, raced for so many years, knows the ins and out of the industry, how do you think about raising your son in racing?

Jenson Button, I interrupted you.

Yeah.

And that's when I think it all changed in my head, 'cause suddenly what was just a hobby, I suddenly thought, "Oh, wait a minute, I can do this." And that environment, the car, I'll never forget the first time I walked into the garage, everything was so immaculate and precise, and the engineers, and I just thought, "This is where I wanna be." And suddenly I was like, "Okay, I can be a racing driver.

I can get some karting, move to single seaters, and get to F3, and then maybe get to F1." And never once did I question why there was no woman in F1, I simply had David Coulthard on my wall 'cause he was Scottish, Jacques Villeneuve 'cause he was in the Williams.

And at 18 we'd done the world championships.

Um, Lewis Hamilton was there, Nico Rosberg.

But also, here's a reality that you're not gonna get around.

I mean, do you think you can be out loud and pink? Now I do.

How do you get people to join you, especially when they are traditionally focused on the here and now, the immediate short-term results? How did you manage to get people to buy into your long-term vision?

Well, I was really lucky that I was in an industry which realized that the climate was changing in a way.

We, as F1, have forty-two percent of the global fan base now being female.

So I only really took this role at F1 Academy because I knew this was our chance, and I wasn't even sure if we would ever see this chance in my lifetime.

But I think that the sport changed.

There was a massive investment in women's sport at the time, and I think those elements really made me believe, okay, the timing is right for something to shift.

But when I arrived, F1 Academy had been set up to be something much smaller, and of course, I came in with this huge vision.

How do you prepare yourself for those conversations, and what advice do you have for delivering constructive feedback? My sense is something, part of it is being very direct, but I'm curious the other pieces for you.

[laughs]

But okay, it's, it's good.

I think when I look back at my childhood, you're right, I had a mother...

I mean, my mum met my dad when she bought her first motorbike from his shop.

She used to race quads.

So I grew up seeing a mother who was equal to my father.

She ran her own business.

Are, are you a big risk, risk-taker in other parts of your life, too? Like, in business or in investing, do you, are you willing to take big risks?

Can you walk me through what a training day back then looked like for you?

Well, the great thing is because I started racing so young, my body kind of transformed with me as I grew older.

But when I made it into DTM, which is German Touring Cars, and then Formula 1, it's a lot of G-Force going through your body.

So one of the areas I really had to work on was my neck.

And I knew a lot of people thought that a woman couldn't be competitive in Formula 1 because of physicality, and I also didn't know, because women have 30% less muscle than men.

But I knew how I needed to feel in a race car, that I was in control and that I was never suffering from not being able to turn the steering wheel.

But it was intense training.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

And we've brought in a lot of the human stories of the young drivers in F1 Academy, so that people can relate to certain characteristics.

But more than anything, I hope the next generation will watch it and think, "Wow, if she could do it, maybe I can do it." We had very few drivers who were only 16 or 17.

Some have been in the sport for a bit longer, and obviously they realized what an incredible opportunity it was.

Because at that stage in your career, to have that opportunity with Hello Sunshine and Netflix-

How did you feel that was projected to the wider world, that whole story?

Well, I think the sport has made a lot of progress, um, in the last years, because the world has also changed.

Um, and I would like to think that every woman in, in a Formula 1 paddock feels that she's in a safe environment.