Nov.2 (GMM) Feminine open wheeler racer Sophia Florsch has slammed the all-women Method 1 help class as partaking in little greater than “pinkwashing”.
The inaugural ‘F1 Academy’ champion of 2023 was 24-year-old Spaniard Marta Garcia, who then obtained a race seat on this yr’s Method Regional European Championship funded by F1 Academy, collection automotive producer Tatuus, and Pirelli.
Nevertheless, she switched from the highest Prema workforce in April to hitch fellow feminine driver Dorian Pin, funded by Mercedes, on the new Iron Dames workforce.
Garcia didn’t rating some extent because the season ended final weekend at Monza.
“I’m a bit emotional,” she wrote on social media, revealing that it had in all probability been right here “final race in a single seater no less than for the close to future”.
“I’m truly with some tears penning this. My dream was at all times to get to F1 and this dream will keep eternally in me.”
German feminine driver Florsch, who made waves together with her spectacular Macau F3 crash and spinal accidents again in 2018, has been an everyday critic of the women-only racing initiatives together with the defunct W Sequence and F1 Academy.
Responding to the demise of Garcia’s open-wheeler profession, 23-year-old Florsch – who nonetheless competes with the boys in FIA Method 3 – renewed her criticisms.
“I’m so sorry for you, Marta,” she mentioned on social media. “It seems to be like they used you (in) 2023 for brief time period advertising and marketing with feminine drivers.
“Visibility doesn’t assist to maintain up with the stopwatch. Visibility simply helps F1 however not feminine drivers,” added Florsch, who simply days in the past was getting ready for her first check within the former Indy Lights collection, Indy NXT.
“Have you ever discovered one sponsor, Marta?” she added. “They then drive you onto the sideline. The place are all the ladies’s applications that have been introduced in 2021-2022? It’s so unhappy. Pinkwashing.”
In response to F1-insider.com, Autosport ran the story about Florsch’s scathing remarks for simply half an hour earlier than taking it offline.
“Behind the scenes, it’s mentioned that this occurred below stress from F1 Academy boss Susie Wolff,” claims correspondent Ralf Bach.
