General
Will this initiative make Formula 1 more diverse? "They're spending £100,000"
- GPblog.com
Over the past month there has been a lot of talk about a lack of diversity within Formula 1 and motorsport as a whole. The main reason that more people with different backgrounds do not enter the world of motorsport is economic inequality at the entry level.
Felipe Massa's racing engineer Rob Smedley says he has now found a solution with his Electrohead's e-kart championship. This championship was set up by him to drastically reduce the costs for parents with children who want to go karting.
"We've got kids doing British championships as young as 11 years old who are spending £100,000 - and that's just not a democratic situation for grassroots motorsport", says the man who sat at Ferrari's en Williams'pitwall to Sky Sports.
Diversity puzzle will grow organically
With his initiative, Smedley expects to reduce that award by 90 to 95 percent in the first instance and the intention is that this amount will be further reduced if this project is rolled out on a larger scale.
"And that's exactly what we're trying to do here, trying to make it cheaper, faster, fairer and bring more people into it. By doing that, you will organically grow that whole diversity piece across gender and across racial diversity."
In this electric karting championship all you have to do as parents is show up with your child and pay membership fees. The management and maintenance of the karts, which are all equal, is taken care of by the organizers. This is what normally most of the money is spent on.