At the highest levels of motorsport, and particularly on the road towards Formula 1, the path to earning and then retaining a competitive seat remains deeply uneven. Junior championships, team academies and funding structures provide very different levels of opportunity depending on gender. While male drivers can rely on an established network of feeder series, sponsors and available seats, female drivers face a much narrower route, often centred on dedicated initiatives and a smaller number of genuinely competitive opportunities.
Maya Weug offers a striking example of that imbalance. In 2021, she became the first woman to join the Ferrari Driver Academy. She then competed for two seasons in F1 Academy, finishing third in 2024 with one victory among eight podium finishes before taking second place in 2025 with three wins and nine podiums, remaining in the championship fight until the final race.
Once that cycle ended, however, her plans for 2026 fell apart. No longer supported by Ferrari, Maya Weug found herself without a complete racing programme. She competed in only three Belcar Endurance Championship races with ART Racing, securing a podium on her GT debut, but her planned appearance in the 24 Hours of Zolder also fell through. Now, less than a year after fighting for a championship, she has no races scheduled.
Maya Weug’s situation highlights wider barriers in motorsport
The differences do not primarily lie in pure driving ability. Studies and historical data indicate that, given comparable mileage and equipment, female drivers can produce competitive performances. Instead, the gap begins much earlier: there are far fewer girls competing in karting and the lower formulae, less sponsorship investment and limited opportunities to progress from women-only championships such as F1 Academy into Formula Regional, Formula 3 or Formula 2.
For male drivers, a high-level result in a junior championship can almost automatically create opportunities for testing, development contracts and funded race seats. For female drivers, even impressive performances can instead lead only to occasional tests or moves into GT racing, without any guarantee of continuity.
Limited media exposure creates another obstacle for female drivers
Those structural difficulties are compounded by significantly lower levels of media attention. The achievements of female drivers, even when they deliver strong results, receive limited coverage from both mainstream outlets and specialist motorsport media. F1 Academy races and performances by women in junior categories rarely receive the same space given to the achievements of male drivers competing at the same level or in comparable championships.
That lack of visibility further reduces the ability of female drivers to attract sponsors, build a public following and establish a strong professional profile. It can become a self-perpetuating cycle: less media attention means fewer commercial opportunities, while the absence of widely covered stories reinforces the perception that top-level motorsport remains predominantly a male domain.
The role of F1 Academy – and the limits of the system
F1 Academy was created specifically to help close this gap by providing female drivers with a competitive environment and greater visibility. However, drivers are limited to two seasons in the championship and what comes afterwards remains uncertain. The series champion receives a funded seat in another single-seater category, while the other drivers, even those who have been highly competitive, must largely rebuild their own path forward.
Maya Weug’s case illustrates how support from a major Formula 1 team can come to an abrupt end once the dedicated development cycle has been completed, leaving a driver to navigate a market in which opportunities for women remain scarce and where limited media attention does little to bridge the gap.
As long as the system continues to provide parallel, time-limited pathways rather than structural integration into the same categories used by male drivers, and as long as female competitors continue to receive marginal media exposure, those differences are likely to remain visible.
What could improve the path beyond F1 Academy?
More reserved or financially supported seats in intermediate categories, longer-term commitments from driver academies, greater access to funding regardless of gender and more balanced media coverage could all help reduce the gap.
Without those steps, stories such as Maya Weug’s risk being repeated: recognised talent and tangible results running into a lack of continuity and public exposure once the dedicated female development series comes to an end.
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