TALKING 'BOUT A REVOLUTION
The world of motorsport is as curious as it is contradictory. On the one (Castrol-stained) hand, it is characterised by the most advanced technologies generating a few more revs per minute in an arena whose metrics are measured in milliseconds. Commentators speak of rigs lumped with “last year’s engine”, as if this were a terminal diagnosis. On the other hand, many of its traditions seem ironically lacking the pace of modern mores. To all intents and purposes, for example, it’s a sport as white as the grid markings beside the pit lane. That it took until 2008 for a person of colour — in the once-in-a-generation magnificence of Lewis Hamilton — to win the Formula One championship is remarkable. And not in a good way. Add to this the fact it was only two years ago, and under some duress, that the powers that be in F1 decided Lycra-clad grid girls were perhaps not the best look in the 21st century.
That Engeman’s and Guthrie’s ascents coincided with that of the women’s liberation movement is not surprising.
Run a montage of favourite motorsport moments through your hippocampus and then scan for women. You’ll find them being
