I know this is old news. But I think that F1 and its sponsors intentionally highlight WAGs instead of female drivers/ team staff, because WAGs don't require the sport to reckon with its misogyny past and present.
If you center female drivers and team staff, they will share their own stories of adversity as women in a sexist industry, or their presence will at least draw unwanted attention to the fact that there are so few women in their field. Also, if you show women drivers and staff, all the anti woke trolls will jump out screaming about how these women are unqualified diversity hires, evidence of how their beloved sport has fallen prey to the evil feminist mob. (There's plenty of evidence that people in the industry think this about women as well, not just fans.) Women aren't supposed to have real jobs, silly! Women are supposed to be sitting pretty on the sidelines and clapping enthusiastically when their guy makes it across the finish line.
Dr. Judy Liao, a professor of sports sociology, theorizes that the WAG resurgence is fueled by backlash to women's sports, which center women outside of the dainty, white, straight ideal. By highlighting WAGs, F1 can cater to a female audience, while also not upsetting gender norms.
“WAGs really kind of offer the mainstream media this really good material to say, ‘We support gender equality because we’re showing women in sport. But it’s not the women who are actually playing the sports.”
(Anyway I've been working on a deep dive into WAG culture, female athletes, race, and gender so lmk if you want to be on the tag list for when it drops.)
