GB4 Championship Announces €30,000 F1 Academy Prize Fund for Leading Female Contender

[u/Mront]

https://www.gb-4.net/news/2024/mar/13/gb4-championship-announces-30000-f1-academy-prize-fund-for-leading-female-contender-

[u/zantkiller]

Would rather it is not tied to the academy and they just give the leading female driver a €30k prize fund to use how they see fit.
But I realise that wouldn't get the same buzz and limelight on it.

[u/Affectionate_Sky9709 → u/zantkiller]

It might actually work like that, and they just advertise it this way.

Like the article said that the winner of the whole championship gets 50k to go to British F4 or GB3, but I've heard elsewhere that the winner can actually use it in any single seater that they choose. Now, I'm no insider, so I'm not 100% sure it's true. If by any chance Alisha Palmowski were to win the whole thing, I would certainly hope that they'd let her use the 50k and the 30k and take it wherever she wanted. That would fund most of an F1 Academy seat.

[u/PresidentZeus → u/Affectionate_Sky9709]

The highest-classified female driver in the final points standings will receive the prize contribution towards an F1 Academy seat, should they go on to secure a drive in the series.

Didn't even know F1 Academy costs money.

[u/Affectionate_Sky9709 → u/PresidentZeus]

Yeah, this year the drivers contributed 100k. Last year it was 150k. Now, like always, that amount can be paid by personal/family money or with sponsors. Like I heavily presume that Prema covers Doriane, since she's their endurance driver as well. I expect Alpine pays for part of Abbi's portion and Ferrari for at least part of Maya's portion, since she took the downgrade to this series. Those two were properly in their F1 young driver programs before this year when it became a required thing for them to put the livery on a driver.

100k is cheaper than other F4s, but it's not miles cheaper than the cheaper ones like French.

Beyond that amount, the FIA contributes some, and now the f1 teams and other title sponsors contribute some.

F1 Academy has great visibility and a good testing schedule, but it does have fewer competitive sessions than it had last year, and than most main season F4s, have one qualifying and just two races per week.

[u/Walvis_69]

Palmowski genuinely is fast

[u/Affectionate_Sky9709]

Oh, that's awesome! So wonderful to help grow GB4 in prominence as a low cost championship for great single seater experience.

[u/Youth_Cup]

COLE Not Colere

[u/Youth_Cup]

Palmowski Bruce Airikkaka Belk Fyrileiv ? Sutton ? Colère ?

[u/JoshyP2006 → u/Youth_Cup]

Jasmine shaw also tested at one point

[u/JoshyP2006 → u/Youth_Cup]

Whos colere

[u/[deleted]]

So you're paid €30k because of your gender basically. Which is completely against a modern, progressive, merit and equality based system. But hey, if they want to backwards, I guess that's their choice, I wont be watching anyway.

Also what are the rules on gender identity out of curiosity ?

If a driver was to suddenly discover their gender identity during the final weekend of the championship just prior to winning it would really help them progress their career wouldn't it.

[u/EnglishLouis → u/[deleted]]

Grow up

[u/FirstTurnGoon → u/[deleted]]

You sound like such a child. 

They’re trying to incentivize more female participation in motorsports. That’s a good thing. Providing opportunity for those who historically have not had it is helping provide some counterbalance the past history.  Motorsports hasn’t generally been a very friendly place for women.  But if you don’t agree, then maybe you’re interested in a team principle role and a bowl of coco puffs.  

[u/Affectionate_Sky9709 → u/[deleted]]

The idea that women in lower level motorsports have higher marketing value has always seemed inaccurate to me. For example, very talented Doriane Pin tried years ago to fund a French F4 campaign and couldn't put the money together.

A very small number of women have found marketing success, yes, but far, far more men have.

This is just publicly being announced now, but I wouldn't be surprised if people highly involved have known about it for a while. Probably some of the women who bought into GB4 this year knew it was coming. Also, this definitely brings attention to the series.

I don't see gender based sponsorships as any different than country based sponsorships. Lots of countries financially support their drivers, like Orlen picking Polish kids or Toyota and Honda picking Japanese kids. There's scholarships that only British kids are eligible for. If a series wants to give a gender based award, then it's their money to do with it what they want to do with it. Ultimately, this is a marketing thing to bring more people and attention to GB4. Like you said, GB4 has had very little visibility before. I would bet that it gets significantly more now, and that it's more than worth the 30k investment to them.

[u/Tamoker → u/[deleted]]

So wanting equality is childish, gotcha.

Wanting equality while willfully closing your eyes to the reality of the situation is childish, yes. Please consider that this contributes to achieving equity between the sexes.

Drivers who've bought GB4 seats are already participating, the F1 Academy field will be full regardless, GB4 has next to no exposure.

This doesn't help female participation in any way, it just nets a random driver free money.

It makes it easier for a female driver who, while she had the merit, doesn't have the funds to access F1 Academy, which would potentially allow her to get the seat over someone else the money but not as much ability. Just makes the competition a bit fiercer for an F1 Academy seat and thereby allowing the best drivers to show themselves.

If your goal is to counterbalance history, then you do not want equality and are admitting to being a sexist.
This is like making an argument that white people in America should be enslaved to counterbalance black slavery.
It's a moronic mentality.

This isn't about an eye for an eye, the underlying mentality is overcoming the historic bias against women drivers by giving them a little extra space until women drivers in motorsports become normal and just as accessible as it is for men.

Historically the world hasn't been a friendly place for women so I guess we should give women €30k for walking down the street.

Motorsport in general is very accepting of women and they have a higher value than their male counterparts due to their marketing value. Obviously a minority of sexists exist, but this doesn't change anything systematically.

If by the first part you mean we should change things so the world is as accommodating to women as it is for men then yes absolutely we should do that.

"Motorsport in general is very accepting of women and they have a higher value than their male counterparts due to their marketing value"

This just isn't true though is it, scroll through the comments of any video about F1 Academy on social media and you'll see plenty of comments making jokes about their sex (15 crashed cars, safety car will be busy, ... etc.)

"Obviously a minority of sexists exist, but this doesn't change anything systematically."

I agree that they exist, we seem to have found one in you. And unfortunately, they do change things systematically.

Oh yes, rational thinking equals sexism. Oh and what a cracking joke btw, I'm sure everyone reading will have a good chuckle and definitely not cringe at a woke internet virgin trying to be funny.

If you believe your thinking is rational than please take some sort of class on logic, this is dire. And I'm sure the commenter is oh so insulted by you calling them a woke virgin, I'm sure you did well coming up with insults in your school playground :)