Sexism frustrates female drivers: 'Most of them are sitting at home typing'

More than 50 years after a woman last managed to qualify for a Formula 1 race, little seems to have changed in that area. Whether F1 is physically feasible remains to be seen, but in the meantime, quite a few women are active in other branches of motorsport. There, they regularly face sexist remarks, Dutch racing driver Beitske Visser tells us.

There are still people who feel there is no place for women in motorsport, female drivers like Visser experience. "Women should stay at home, women should stay in the kitchen," she lists by way of example in conversation with the NOS. Interestingly, these comments often come from people outside the motorsport world.

Visser on sexism in motorsport

She does get respect from teams in general, as she says she has "shown quite a bit" in motorsport. "It's mostly people sitting at home typing away at their keyboard who don't always agree. They then post weird comments," Visser explained.

19-year-old racing driver Emely de Heus agrees with her W Series colleague's words and admits that such comments sometimes frustrate her quite a bit. "Usually it is someone who is not even on the track himself. If he was next to me, I would probably pass him five times," she says.

Both drivers compete in the W Series. The class is meant to offer women a stepping stone to other racing classes, but so far it is succeeding with difficulty. Jamie Chadwick, for instance, won the championship three times, but she could not find enough sponsors to make a move to Formula 3. This year, the W Series championship was cut short early due to financial problems. Nevertheless, Visser and De Heus remain confident that there will be a female driver on the Formula 1 grid in the future.