Formula 1 has been struggling to promote women for years. Sebastian Vettel also sees a reason for this in statements made by Formula 1 boss Stefano Domenicali. The German clearly distances himself from it and considers his thinking to be outdated.
Sebastian Vettel absolutely disagrees with what Formula 1 boss Stefano Domenicali said. "That was a pretty unfortunate choice of words," said the Aston Martin driver, because "these are exactly the statements that girls and women are confronted with when they have big dreams." Instead, "this way of thinking in stereotypes, which is slowly disappearing, must disappear completely," the 35-year-old continued. He was reacting to Domenicali's words that it is almost certain that no woman will make the step into Formula 1 in the next five years, "unless a meteorite hits the earth".
The boss of the world's most popular racing series, which is currently reporting new viewer records on almost every Grand Prix weekend, is sending out a completely wrong message for the German four-time world champion. As an example, Vettel outlines a conversation at the breakfast table. At this sit girls who "talk about their dreams and say that they would like to be a racing driver. And then the father would have just read a statement (like Domenicali's; editor's note)" - and would answer: "You like other things too, why don't you concentrate on that?" According to Vettel, this would then have drastic effects, because "then they might just concentrate on other things, stop racing or not pursue the idea at all."
That's why, according to Vettel, "it's important that we don't make such statements in the first place," because the consequences cannot be estimated at all. "I don't see any reason why a woman shouldn't" make the step into Formula 1. Especially since in the early days of the series, in the 1950s, Maria Teresa de Filippis was the first woman to qualify for three races and Lella Lombardi was the first (and still the only) woman to finish in the points at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix had done. Since 1992, however, since Giovanna Amati failed to qualify for the Grand Prix three times, Formula 1 has been purely male-dominated with the exception of a few test and practice drives.
"It can't be," Vettel explains his once again clear attitude, "that in a modern world we still say: 'You can't do that because you're a girl or a woman.'" The 53-fold Grand Prix -Sieger has been committed to equal rights, equal opportunities and equal treatment for years. "Prejudices like this don't belong in our world," says the father of three children, who is also why he keeps publicly formulating his thoughts on how he imagines change for the better and how this could be designed and implemented.
This is another reason why Vettel, who is ending his career after this season, is deliberately and publicly supporting the female offspring. He does "the opposite" of Domenicali: "I encourage all the girls at the breakfast table to speak up and prove that Stefano and everyone else is wrong in this case." The Formula 1 boss also emphasized that the racing series was trying to "improve the system" and that it was crucial "to give women the maximum opportunity on the way to Formula 1" - but it was mainly that that spread statement clearly criticized by Vettel.
