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How Susie Wolff Plans To Get More Girls Into The Racing World

Susie Wolff’s eyes are drilling into mine. We’re sitting in the Monaco office of Venturi Racing, the steep cliff holding up the famous royal palace visible in the window behind her. Needing to sit still for a few moments for the HuffPost UK camera, Wolff has spontaneously challenged me to a staring contest.

She’s poised, a slight smile on her mouth. I crumble in about two seconds, and blink furiously as my opponent bursts into laughter.

This is a woman whose steely focus has driven her through life, from karting as a small girl, to Formula One tracks, to leading a Formula E team.

Wolff tells a well-worn anecdote about her first go-karting race, which she didn’t much enjoy after being jostled about on the track. Her father laid out two options: to pack up and go home or to get back on the track and hit the other racers as hard as they were hitting her. And to go faster.

“I think you can all guess which option I went for,” she says with a grin. Go faster she did. Quite often faster than all the boys, much to their surprise.

While you can’t tell the gender of a racing driver when everyone has their helmets on, Wolff was given her fair share of pink helmets and cars, making her a target on the track for boys frustrated to be losing to a girl.

After coming up through the karting world, Wolff began her professional career in the Formula Renault UK Championship. She landed on the winner’s podium three times, a few times alongside future F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton. She was twice nominated for British Young Driver of the Year Award, an accolade she also shares with Hamilton.

But the realities of being the only woman on track were starting to bite. One moment sticks with Wolff when she qualified for the World Championships. She had finished in 15th place, a good result, but she wasn’t on the podium.

When she heard her name through the loudspeakers, there was confusion on her team as to why she was being called. She ran to the award ceremony, only...

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