When Jessica Hawkins became the first woman in five years to test a modern Formula 1 car in 2023, her status as a role model in the sport was only beginning.
Hawkins was one of 32 women who drove across the W series racing competition from 2019 to 2022. Once the motorsport series shuttered and Hawkins moved onto stunt driving and sports car racing, she became a vital link between F1 and F1 Academy, the all-female junior series.
When F1 announced all 10 teams would back an F1 Academy team following the series’ inaugural season in 2023, what that partnership would look like beyond a car logo or driver kit became hazy.
But Hawkins represents exactly how teams like Aston Martin support the feeder series designed to develop female racing talent. Last year, she joined as the team’s head of F1 Academy, an expanded version of her previous role supporting driver Tina Hausmann.
Hawkins joined Aston Martin as a driver ambassador in 2021 with the aim of improving the team’s diversity and inclusion efforts. This year, she’s also competing under the storied British brand for the GT World Challenge Europe.
But just because the 30-year-old isn’t suiting up and slipped into a single-seater car over the F1 Miami Grand Prix weekend doesn’t mean she isn’t an important part of the emerald green team.
“There’s lots of partner events, there’s lots of media work, lots of filming, also working closely with Tina in her program and F1 Academy,” Hawkins explains from the Miami Dolphins NFL stadium-turned-paddock over the F1 Miami weekend. “Just helping her develop over a weekend — making sure she’s got everything she needs, making sure we’ve got everything we need from here, making sure that she’s coping well if there is anything she’s struggling with.”
Hausmann is one of 18 drivers who will compete across seven races this F1 Academy season. The series aims to make the weaving, and male-dominated, path to F1 more accessible for women and girls. A woman has not competed in the upper echelon of motorsport since 1992 when Giovanna Amati failed to qualify for the three races she entered. Lella Lombardi was the first and only woman to score a point in F1 in 1975. In 2014, F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff became the latest woman to participate in an F1 weekend during free practice.
There have been misconceptions as to where the racing series fits into F1, but Hawkins says she doesn’t pay attention to the noise. “I don’t know what people’s perception of it is. I just have my perception,” She told The Independent on Sunday. “It’s not trying to be Formula 1. It’s not trying to be a ladies’ Formula 1, a woman’s Formula 1. It’s really giving the opportunities to females in their early career to gain experience in a junior formula to prepare them to move on to their next step in the future.”
The series has also become an entry point for beauty and fashion investment in motorsport, targeting the sport’s ever-growing female fanbase. This week, Hawkins announced a partnership with British skincare brand ELEMIS: “To have a partnership with them is amazing. I think working closely with them is going to be amazing. I’m excited for all the things we get to do together.”
As the sport and its sponsors begin to embrace F1’s 41 percent female audience, Hawkins said there is only room to grow.
“I think that there’s been a sudden realization that actually there are female Formula 1 fans,” she said. “It’s nice to see that everybody else is seeing what, I guess, we’ve known for years.”
F1 Academy’s Miami race weekend was cut short on Sunday due to rain, but the competition will continue in mid-June at the Canadian Grand Prix.
