Photo: Formula E
Formula E has announced that one of the sessions at pre-season testing next month will have a requirement to feature female drivers.
Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit will host testing on November 4-7, ahead of the season-opening Sao Paoulo E-Prix a month later. On the test’s final day, teams will be required to have a woman in one of their cars in the designated session.
The championship announced it is also “working with teams and partners to provide further opportunities for women drivers, such as engineering support, simulator time, future test opportunities and driver and holistic coaching”, and that its Gen4 car (which will be introduced in 2026) will feature power steering designed “to aid the performance for male and female drivers”.
Three female drivers have raced in FE across its first 10 seasons. Michela Cerruti did the first four and Katherine Legge competed in the first two races of the inaugural season, and Simona de Silvestro joined the grid at the end of that campaign then came 18th in the following 2015-16 season with Andretti Global.
Legge was primarily racing in IndyCar this year, and another woman competing at single-seaters’ top level is Juju Noda. She is currently in her rookie Super Formula season, and graduated from the third-tier Euroformula championship.
Jamie Chadwick is a race-winner in Indy Nxt, and recently conducted her maiden IndyCar test with Andretti as she assesses whether to pursue a move into the series for 2025. She went up against Taylor Ferns, a star of short track oval racing, in Indy Nxt this season.