If female drivers are uncommon in racing, female team principals are rarer still. Former F1 test driver Susie Wolff—now heading the Venturi team in Formula E—is one of those few team principals. And she’s just secured her first win as team principal, making history in the series.
Formula E’s short history has been punctuated by a complicated relationship to women. The series debuted with two female drivers at its first race with the promise that it would be the motorsport series of the future—but female drivers have become just as few and far between in FE as they are outside of it.
When Susie Wolff joined the Venturi team at the start of the 2018-19 season, she not only made history as the first female team principal in the series’ short history, but she also brought back the progressive attitude toward gender that the series has lost.
At the fifth race of the season in Hong Kong, Edoardo Mortara of Venturi won the team’s first race with Susie Wolff at the helm after Sam Bird was given a post-race five-second time penalty after a bad last-lap move saw him puncture Andre Lotterer’s rear wheel. The controversial finish saw Wolff become the first female team principal to win a race in FE.
Not only that, but this makes Wolff the second ever team principal to win an FIA-sanctioned race, behind PSRX VW Sweden team principal Pernilla Solberg.