Sky Sports pundit SLAMS F1 teams' lack of effort over female drivers

Sky Sports pundit Naomi Schiff has said she hopes the F1 Academy drivers will be supported by the F1 teams further than just branding.

The second season of the all-female series kicks off in Saudi Arabia this week, and features several key changes from the inaugural season in 2023.

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F1 Academy will be on the undercard for the Formula 1 season for all seven rounds of the championship and will be televised live on Sky Sports, as well as every session being made available to fans for free via YouTube and X.

Furthermore, each of the 10 F1 teams will run a driver and car in the series in their respective colours and the top five finishers in the standings will receive points towards their FIA Super License, which is required to race in F1.

Schiff slams F1 teams over F1 Academy partnerships

While the partnerships with the F1 teams will no doubt bring significant commercial benefits, Schiff believes that the female drivers must be given the same treatment as their male competitors in order to get them on the grid.

Speaking in Saudi Arabia, the former W Series driver said: "Hopefully the links stretch further than just from an optical perspective.

“Having them involved in their socials, in their videos helps the drivers grow their profiles, which will hopefully help them get the sponsorship they need as well to do more testing to advance their skills and make them better drivers.

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"And also from that perspective, if they bring them into the team, I hope they'll be doing a lot of development with the drivers, whether that's on the simulator, working with the engineers that they have access to, maybe even with some of the F1 team's drivers. Hopefully these teams are passing on skills to the drivers as well as branding.

"Part of the issue is that these drivers are being picked up at essentially what is between the ages of 16 and 24, whereas some of the male junior drivers have been in these F1 team programmes from a very young age.

“It's not enough to just throw the girls in and say, 'you've got eight races, however many free practices, and that should be enough'.

"No, there needs to be proper testing programmes, proper development programmes, proper funding behind these drivers because the opportunity is great, and I hope that they take the most out of it. But there needs to be more from partners, teams and other backers."

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