Patrick: Not important to me to have female F1 driver

Formula 1 has been pushing for having female drivers amongst its ranks, and has lately launched the F1 Academy, a racing series intended to develop female racing talent with the hope of having an F1 female driver.

Susie Wolff, wife of Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is a former DTM racer and Williams development team was appointed at Managing Director of the F1 Academy. She has also served as Team Principal for the Venturi Formula E team.

However former race, Patrick who now serves as a pundit on Sky Sports revealed she has an opinion about female drivers which may not be in line with F1's current direction.

Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, Patrick was asked about the prospect of having a female racing driver join F1.

Patrick began: "Well, you're assuming I want that, you're assuming that is important to me, and it's not.

"It's always an interesting stance I have on it. I think that what makes the sport really popular is great racing - you can have half the field out there women and have it be follow the leader, and it's not going to be interesting to watch.

"Good racing, and that's what we have so much of these days in Formula 1, I mean pretty much everything other than Max is a toss-up for who's going to be second, third, fourth, fifth that weekend, and so that's what makes it really appealing.

"And so I think, as someone who obviously was a girl, you've just got to come up like normal," the winner of the 2008 Indy Japan 300 insisted.

All F1 Academy races will take place over F1 race weekend in 2024 with every F1 team having an Academy driver racing under their name, carrying their colors, but Patrick believes the competition with the all female series will not help the talents develop properly.

She explained: "I do have a little bit of... not a criticism, but an opinion about female series, is that it's fine, it can give opportunity for some who might not get a chance otherwise to show what they can do, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to race against guys.

"So when you watch golf, you watch that a lot of times, a golfer that's maybe not ranked as high, will rise to the occasion with whoever he's golfing with, and I think that tends to happen in all sports.

"That's why you see some of the best wanting to practice and be with the best, because then they get better. If you bench yourself off something that's not the best, then it's going to affect your effort level, your mental goal, what you envision yourself doing.

"So you really have to put yourself in the toughest situations and you might as well do it early because it's only going to get harder," the American reckoned.

"I just think that, giving proper tests, to be able to see if a female driver is fast enough, is a great way to know if there should be a next step forward," Patrick went on. "But as far as anything beyond that, I think they should be racing with the guys, I think racing in the same series, and they've just got to get people around them that believe in them.

"I think the more times that you put yourself in a position to show what you can do, the better off you are, and it's better to be in the car than not.

"So I think just more cars, more track time and more opportunities to show what you can do is just always a good thing," Patrick concluded.