Aspiring future leaders of motorsport in Saudi Arabia had the opportunity to visit the Formula E paddock at last weekend's Jeddah E-Prix, with over 120 girls exploring behind the scenes at the double-header weekend, many of whom with aspirations of a career in the sport.
This unique opportunity gave girls, local to the Jeddah area, the chance to experience a professional racing paddock and engage in conversation with women already working in the industry.
In line with Formula E’s Girls on Track initiative, that aims to inspire girls and young women to engage with motorsport, over 48% of attending fans and 60% of volunteers across the Jeddah E-Prix weekend were women and girls.
Elen, who aspires to be an automotive engineer in motorsport, said: “My dream one day is to be an automotive engineer or a car designer for events like these. The cars just give you pure adrenaline – the structure of the car is so carefully crafted and makes you say ‘wow’. Being here makes me think about coming back as a volunteer to be part of the race weekend again.”
Layla, who is already enrolled in Williams Racing's summer program, said: “I love motorsport, so this is a really unique opportunity to be in the pitlane. I’d love to be a mechanical engineer and back in the paddock one day, hopefully with Williams in F1. I’ve even signed up for their summer program for sim-racing and hopefully I can join their junior engineering program in the future.”
Haya, who aims to become a race strategist in the future, said: “I’ve met so many amazing women already involved in the sport. This experience showed me how I can be involved as previously I didn’t think this would be possible. I hope one day to be a strategist with CUPRA Kiro, I find the strategic side of the sport to be so interesting and how they plan for a successful race.”
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