Formula E’s co-founder and chief championship officer, Alberto Longo, urged motorsport to compensate for decades of missed opportunities rather than create women-only series, as the world of racing confronts a stark gender imbalance.
Formula E is a racing series for electric single-seaters. The inaugural championship race was held in September 2014 and the series gained FIA world championship status in 2020.
“I firmly believe that if women are competitive, they should race against men, not have their own championship,” Longo told Reuters on Wednesday.
His approach contrasts sharply with Formula One’s F1 Academy, a support series aimed at helping female racers progress. Instead, Longo advocates for tackling the problem at its roots through Formula E’s FIA Girls on Track programme.
“Fifty years ago, a father would take his son to a karting track and his daughter shopping for dolls. Now, why not take both?” he said.
The scale of the challenge was evident at Formula E’s rookie test in Berlin in July, where four women participated. Abbi Pulling, last year’s F1 Academy champion and GB3 competitor, was the highest-placed female driver, finishing 17th overall with Nissan.
“If people told me that a female driver was going to join Formula One or Formula E, I’d say we’re not quite there yet, we are half a century behind,” Longo said. “We are trying to make up those years so that they are equally competitive within the next 10-15 years.
“What we lack in most cases is a period of training. They have had far fewer kilometres and hours of competition. If you start racing from the age of six or eight, when you reach 16 you’ll be at the same level.”
Formula E’s Girls on Track, in its seventh year, has supported more than 4,500 young people aged 12-18 in a sport in which women make up only 3% of licensed competitors worldwide.
The championship, however, has no female drivers after featuring three in its early seasons, yet Longo says their corporate structure tells a different story.
“Women make up 54% of Formula E’s workforce, with every team featuring female staff, from engineers to mechanics,” he said. “We certainly make room and open doors to make this possible.”
Formula E and Asia — ‘a perfect marriage’
Beyond gender diversity, Formula E is eyeing substantial growth in China, where the championship could expand to four rounds in the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market.
“I’ve never seen such an appetite from a country to be part of our championship,” Longo said.
The provisional 2025/26 calendar already features two Shanghai races scheduled for July 4-5, with additional slots on May 30 and June 20 yet to be filled.
“The growth of the category there is spectacular. It’s more than just strategy, it’s a voracious appetite for our products in Asia,” Longo said. “We want to grow there and they want us to grow, so it’s a perfect marriage.”
Longo said the contrast with the US was pronounced, with President Donald Trump’s administration scaling back a number of EV incentives.
“In the US it’s a little more difficult, perhaps because now they don’t have such a clear green agenda.”
Though Formula E planned at least two American races covering both coasts in the medium term, the series ultimately aimed to race in six US cities, Longo said.
Reuters
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