I didn't get to see the national anthem for the F1 race, but someone took a photo that concerned me.
Why are all the girls in F1 Academy T-shirts and all the boys in F1 T-shirts? That comes across as F1 trying to tell people that girls should not aspire higher than a series that is below F4 in the hierarchy. Aim for a trap series that is relegated to a YouTube channel, where there are artificial hierarchies from pressuring women to drop down series to give Liberty PR. It implies that girls are only fit to learn from boys (let alone men). It implies the "real action" is designed to be on F1, F2 and F3 - all of which are higher in the feeder system than F1 Academy. After all, all the participants in F1 are men, and if girls are only intended to aspire to the Academy, why would they believe they were allowed to be in F1? Remember that the last time a large survey was done on this topic, 70% of fans did not realise women were allowed to be in F1. That was during W Series and thus before F1 Academy. Wouldn't it have been so much better to have had every child wear a T-shirt with all the series on the official F1 roster (F1, F2, F3 or F1 Academy) or all the series racing on the official F1 roster this weekend (F1 and F1 Academy)? The FIA's already had problems this weekend with a president making racist statements built on separating F1 drivers from an occupation predominantly worked by Black people, in defence of a policy of limited value on a self-defeating premise. Remember to add sexism to that. Also remember that on multiple occasions this weekend, the FIA has shown that it considers safety to be less important than the triptych of sexism, separatism and self-censorship. Charles Leclerc is right - the FIA does have more important things to worry about! As one of my good friends says, we don't race as one.
