Surrounded by oily car parts and acrid petrol fumes in a garage teeming with
male mechanics, Wolff, pretty and petite, toting a blue Hermès bag, doesn’t
exactly blend in. Since 2012, she has worked as a development driver for
Williams Martini Racing, where she does everything from testing the latest
cars to driving celebrities such as Morgan Freeman and Eva Longoria around
Grand Prix tracks.
Before that, she worked her way up through the ranks of karting, Formula Three
and racing German touring cars for Mercedes. Her big break came in March,
when Williams announced that Wolff would take part in two F1 practice
sessions in Britain and Germany this summer.
It’s more than a break, however; it’s a breakthrough. Womankind’s record of
achievement in motor sport is far from impressive – in 64 years, just five
have made Grand Prix entry lists, most recently British driver Divina Galica
in 1972.
Getting this far has not been easy. Formula One, known for its “pit girls” and
macho male stars, hasn’t exactly welcomed Wolff with open arms.
“There are times when it has been hard, purely because of my gender,” she
says, in her soft Scottish lilt. “But it’s such a performance-based sport
that it’s tough to get into regardless of whether you’re male or female. The
culture is changing, too: there’s no talk of quotas, or of pushing women in
just for the sake of it. My boss, Claire [Williams, deputy team principal at
Williams Martini Racing], is a woman – so how can people tell me it’s still
a male-dominated world?”
Her attitude is positive – perhaps, one suspects, because she has been
fielding questions like this for more than a decade – but the sport’s
figureheads don’t do the female cause any favours. When Wolff was taken on
by Williams, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone remarked: “If Susie’s as quick in
a car as she looks good out of a car, she’ll be a huge asset.”
Sir Stirling Moss, too, put his foot in it by claiming that women didn’t have
the mental strength to compete on the track – but was shamed into
apologising. “I told him there was no need,” she grins.
With such cynicism at the highest levels, does she feel pressure to prove the
naysayers wrong? “I’m not out to rewrite the history books of what women can
achieve in racing. I’m out to be the best Susie Wolff I can be, and if that
inspires other women along the way, then that’s a positive thing. I’ve just
got to focus on being the fastest and the best.”
It’s a steely mindset Wolff has had since youth. Born in Oban, Scotland, she
grew up playing in the motorbike shop that her parents, John and Sally, have
owned for the past 35 years. She first rode a bike aged two and a go-kart
when she was eight.
“I was one of those annoying kids who was competitive about everything I did:
swimming, skiing, karting. I couldn’t have asked for a better start in life
– my parents never made me feel I was doing anything unusual for a girl. It
wasn’t until I was in my teens that I realised there weren’t many other
women in motorsport.”
Wolff started a degree in international business at Edinburgh University, but
spent her student loan on racing and quit to move down to Silverstone. “That
wasn’t a sacrifice,” she laughs, “that was like, ‘Aleluia, I’m free!’ But
there were sacrifices along the way – no getting drunk or going out
partying. My parents worry that I missed out on a big part of my childhood,
and it was a risk as it could have gone either way. But I’m happy I took
that chance.”
In 2006, she moved to Stuttgart on a one-year contract with Mercedes – and
ended up staying for another six. It was there Wolff met her husband, Toto,
executive director of the group’s F1 team, whom she married in 2011. The
couple now live in Switzerland.
“He’s incredibly supportive but he doesn’t like to watch me when I’m on the
track,” admits Wolff. “The last thing he says before a race is: ‘Do a great
job – but you’ll be safe, won’t you?’ And I just nod and say, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ”
Safety is always at the front of Wolff’s mind – particularly after the tragic
fate of Spanish driver Maria de Villota, a close friend, who died last year
from injuries she suffered in a previous crash. “You have to be safe, but
you can’t be scared,” says Wolff. “Have I ever thought that I could die in a
race car? No. I know that I am going very fast and that things can happen.
I’ve had a few bad crashes but I’ve just got straight back out there. Fear
never comes into my head.”
Which is absolutely the opposite of what I’m thinking as she challenges me to
a second lap of the circuit – this time in a Mercedes. I’m expecting it to
be less terrifying than the first, but instead it’s worse, like being in an
out-of-control family saloon, lurching and roaring around the track at a
heart-stopping 140mph. Is Wolff a nightmare on the roads, I gasp? “I’m not a
crazy driver, but I am impatient in traffic,” she admits. “I’ll hop lanes
and do anything to move forward.”
Off track, Wolff is anything but a tomboy; she counts among her inspirations
Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, and Michele Mouton, president of the Women
Motorsport Commission. “From any strong woman, you can learn something –
and I always like to look at ways I can better myself,” she says. “When mums
come up and say their daughters admire me, I always say, ‘Wait! I’ve got so
much more to achieve.’ That is one thing I would like to be: a decent role
model. We’ve got so many celebrities and reality TV stars who are famous for
no reason. We need more women to look up to.”
Having a family herself is a long way off – first, Wolff wants to take her
one-woman F1 crusade as far as possible. “When I got married, all people
seemed to care about was when I was having kids. Is that all I am on the
earth to do? Is that all I’m capable of?” Motorsport and motherhood, she
says, don’t mix: “When I feel I can’t get any further in my sport, I’ll
stop, and if the time is right, I’ll have kids. But I’m not under any
pressure. I love my life too much to change it.”
For now, anyway, she’s far too busy prepping for the big race. With a swish of
her hair, she climbs back into the Hypersonic, revs the engine and swings it
backwards in a perfect arc. “And they say girls can’t reverse!” she yells,
before disappearing in a puff of exhaust fumes,. And off she zooms, once
again showing the boys how it’s done.
To watch Susie Wolff’s guide to Silverstone, visit telegraph.co.uk/video