Push to boost female drivers in motorsport

More young girls are set to compete neck and neck with blokes in the fastest cars in the world amid a push to get them into motorsport.

Up and coming go-kart drivers Kyla Tong, 16, Aiva Anagnostiadis, 14 and Sienna Bua, 9, are part of the Girls on Track program. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Grassroots efforts to boost the number of Australian female Formula 1 drivers are gaining momentum in Victoria, as the state speeds towards the first Grand Prix to be held in Melbourne in two years.

One key part of the strategy is the Girls on Track program where one of Australia’s brightest talents, driver Aiva Anagnostiadis, will be mentoring aspiring karters ahead of her race in the Australian Kart Championship in South Australia in a fortnight.

“I‘ll be helping out teaching them how to drive – what’s a brake, accelerator, turning all that type of stuff,” the 14-year-old said.

“There aren’t many female (role models). So just getting in and showing girls you can do this, you can be an F1 engineer.

“It’s to show young girls that there are other things than just being a dancer or going and playing netball on the weekend. There is stuff with a motor, wheels and a steering wheel.”

The two-day workshop held in Port Melbourne from Monday will cover engineering, mechanics and driving and aims to attract more girls into STEM subjects so they can take up motorsport.

Karting Australia chief operating officer Lee Hanatschek said there was a push to change the sport’s male-dominated ranks, from the governing body in the Federation Internationale de l‘Automobile (FIA) down to the beginning of a driver’s career in karting.

“From a Karting Australia perspective we are very focused on improving female participation in motorsport,” he said “Role models are important in any sport and any career. Motorsport is no different.”

Karting Australia has 64 affiliated clubs across the country with about 6500 licence holders, about 7 per cent of the licence holders are female.

Motorsport Australia chief Eugene Arocca, who backs the Girls on Track program, said the industry could not expect engagement across the community if 90 per cent of participants were male.

“We are really keen to impress upon women there is a real opportunity to not only be the best within your own group but also to be the best in the world,” he said.

Grand Prix Australia chief Andrew Westacott said he wanted to see more development pathways for young girls and boys to attract them to a career in karting.

“We have seen at the Australian Kart Championships very strong performances by the female drivers in those early ages,” he said.

“We should be doing more to ensure and encourage female participation at a club level and enter the state championship level at a national level.”

He said tickets were selling fast to the Australian Grand Prix to be held in Melbourne in April next year — with full capacity crowds of up to 100,000 a day — and hoped one day there could be an Australian female driver on the track.

“I think the first step would be to have an Australian woman be one of the new champions in W Series and I think then moving on into the currently male dominated formula of F3, F2 and F1,” he said.