The main category of World Motorsport, the F-1, has five women’s competitions in its seven-decade history. None of them was Brazilian.
There is no direct way to win space on the desired grid. But from next year, 23-year-old Bruna Tomaselli from Santa Catarina will be closer to her big dream. She will represent the country in the W-Series, the world’s first single-seater category exclusively for women.
The construction of the championship in 2019 is part of the work that the International Automobile Federation has taken up to increase women’s participation on the tracks.
In 2021, the eight phases of the second edition of the Women’s Championship will be played in the GPs of France, Austria, United Kingdom, Hungary, Belgium, Holland, USA and Mexico, with the F-1 calendar as already. F-2 and F-3.
“The W-Series was previously well looked after, had a lot of visibility, and now racing with the F-1 will become even bigger”, Broha said in an interview with Folha. “We’ll be able to show our work for the F-1 circus, which is what everyone wants.”
The partnership between the categories was celebrated by a seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. “When we talk about diversity, they usually think that we talk about more people of color. But we also need to include more women.” “It’s a male-dominated game, and it needs to change.”
Pilots have longed for this change. Bruna was not even born when a woman last entered the category in 1992. That year, Giovanna Amati had tried to qualify for three races, at a time when all pilots who did not participate in qualification training attended the GP.
The Italian did not advance to any race before being replaced in the Brahm team by Britton Damon Hill. Only two women, also Italian, were on the starting grid: Maria Teresa de Filippis and Laila Lombardi, scoring only one point in the latter category.
“Even the few women who made it to the F-1 helped us get inspired for a day,” says Bruna. “And how did it happen so long ago that it also inspires us.”
That inspiration should not shake it during 2020, when the W-series debut was depressed by the expected new coronovirus epidemic. The second season has been postponed until 2021.
“I was so scared at first [da pandemia]Mainly because I wouldn’t have a championship, “the driver says.” But I soon resumed my training and managed to keep up with my physical activities. As I live in a small town, the gym was practically not closed, but of course, they were careful.
Born in Cabia, a municipality west of Santa Catarina, about 650 km from Florianapolis, Bruna split her time between training in the simulator and Empire Endurance Brazil’s feud with a long-term racing championship in which she would win the first. Became a woman. One stage, the fifth and the most advanced race of the year, was held in Curitiba.
During the first semester, Brazil did some training with the F-3 car, but spent most of the time practicing on the simulator. First, on the model you purchased, then on the equipment shipped by the W-series organization.
“How to train with cars in the category, when everyone has collective training sessions together, so I have to train a lot in the simulator to get to know the tracks well. I don’t know if I race on any circuit I’m going to put it, so it’s going to be a challenge. More. “
It was in a virtual way that she had the first contact with rivals that she would face in the W-series. Like the F-1, the female-only category promoted an online competition for pilots. Some circuits had 10 stages that would be part of the 2021 calendar.
With 20 contestants on the grid, Bruna ended the championship in 17th place, a performance that, according to him, delayed delivery of his equipment.
“The class sent everyone a similar simulator. But I arrived a little bit after the start of the championship. The first race I did with each other” is a pity. “But it was fun and it helped us keep in touch.”
When the competition actually starts in France on 26 June, such problems should not affect anyone. The promise of the W-series is to hold a championship with equal circumstances for all, especially in relation to cars. They will be mechanically identical and undergo an inspection before the race to remove any technical advantages that a team may develop.
It would be an unprecedented situation for Bruna Tomaselli, who won her first kart at the age of seven and a career encouraged by her father.
From 2017 to 2019, she competed for USF 2000, one of the categories of access to Indy in the United States. To qualify for the competition in the W-Series, she was first nominated by former Brazilian driver Bia Figueiredo, then had to send her competition history and eventually, she went through a selective.
The 2021 grid will include 12 remnants of the first version and eight new pilots including Bruna.
At the end of the competition, eight best placed points will be received which help them to obtain a super license, required to drive in F1. It takes 40 points to reach the main motorsport category, and the W-Series champion will add 15.
The only South American on the grid, Bruna Tomaselli no longer wants to think about it. At the moment, you want to run again. “I’m really looking forward to the season starting soon.”
