Abbi Pulling: ‘It’s possible a woman can be in F1 in the next five years’

From insisting on riding only the fastest horse as a child to galloping around the world’s grand prix circuits, Abbi Pulling has long had the need for speed. Formula One is the goal for this determined, talented youngster who, having grown up admiring Lewis Hamilton, is convinced she may yet break the glass ceiling of what the seven-time champion has decried as F1’s “billionaire boys’ club”. Change is coming, Pulling is in the vanguard.

Now in her first full season in the all-female W Series, Lincolnshire’s Pulling has already made a real impression. The series, which covers all the costs of its drivers, has revived the 19-year-old’s dream of making it to F1, as has being taken on by the Alpine F1 team as an affiliate to their young driver programme. She is second in the championship to Britain’s Jamie Chadwick, who has won the previous two W Series titles. This season’s fourth round will be held on Saturday at Paul Ricard before Sunday’s French Grand Prix.

Chadwick, a Williams development driver and the dominant force in the W Series, recently questioned whether women would be able to physically cope with the demands of F1, which has not had a female driver in a grand prix since Lella Lombardi raced in Austria in 1976. Pulling has no such doubts.

“That’s Jamie’s opinion, but mine is that with the Alpine programme, we definitely believe a female can be fit enough to race at those levels,” she says. “I think it’s possible that a female can be in F1 in the next five years. I would like it to be myself but regardless, it shows the direction that motorsport is going in and how positive it is on the female side at the moment.”

Pulling has talent in spades but is fortunate the W Series has been instrumental, as it has with