British American Racing (BAR) founder Craig Pollock is pushing to enter a new team into Formula 1, following the FIA’s announcement that they were open to allowing two new teams to join the grid.
The former BAR CEO and team principal isn’t planning on entering any normal team, though, but a world’s first.
Pollock is attempting to enter a side into F1 currently being dubbed as ‘Formula Equal’, with the team to consist of the same number of men and women, with the team’s “ambition” being to get women “to the very top level inside motorsports”.
Nothing has ever been done like it before, with Pollock believing that the concept is easier when starting from “a clean sheet of paper”.
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“Our ambition is to deliver and build opportunities and pathways for women to get to the very top level inside motorsports,” Pollock told CNN.
“The concept and the idea is to try and build a Formula 1 team – 50 percent male, 50 percent female – which is extremely hard to do if you have an existing Formula 1 team. It’s a lot easier with a clean sheet of paper.”
Having a 50/50 team is something that Pollock is aware will be difficult to set-up, given that currently not enough women “are trained up to the level of Formula 1”.
In order to make the idea a reality, though, Pollock knows that an academy system will be needed, to ensure that there is a constant flow of female employees at the correct level.
“We know that we are going to have to go through our academy systems,” said Pollock.
“We know we’re going to have to build it up because there are not enough women at the moment who are trained up to the level of Formula 1 and they’ve got to earn a place in there at the same time.”
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The prospective team is reportedly going to be based and funded by Saudi Arabia, with the outfit to become the first F1 team based “truly outside of Europe”.
“I’m not really in the position to talk about that and be fully open about it at this present time,” Pollock said in regard to the speculated investors.
“That will come out in the very near future. And I just hope it’s going to work because it does take a lot of money.”