D2BD

For about 1 year now, the two of us have been Dare to be Different members. For those of you that do not know what this is; D2BD (Insta: @D2BD) is a community of women who are passionate about motorsport and its aim is to get more women into the male dominated industry; “Driving Female Talent”. Last December we were lucky enough to be chosen to attend a D2BD networking event at Williams F1 Racing Headquarters in Grove. We flew down from Aberdeen to go to this event as it was an amazing opportunity for us to hear from some influential women in the Formula 1 world as well as meet other girls who were interested in motorsports and getting a career in the industry.

Entrance to Williams HQ.

The event started with a networking opportunity where you could pop your contact details down on specific boards suited to the area you were interested in; STEM, Journalism/Media, Medical, Racing etc. This allowed us to keep in contact with girls who shared similar goals from all ages and backgrounds.

Following on from this we headed into the Ayrton Senna Auditorium (PINCH US!!!) where we heard some amazing talks from 4 very incredible D2BD ambassadors.

From left to right: Rachel Brookes, Claire Sibley, Claire Morden and Lizzie Thompson.

The first talk was from Sky F1's Rachel Brookes - one of the country’s leading sports journalists. Rachel has always loved Motorsport – both her father and her brother raced when she was younger, but she never thought that she’d actually work in it, let alone in Formula One. Rachel never got a degree but she would write to individuals in the hope of getting a chance. She had no experience but they would let her do little jobs here and there. Name from a job advert. Following this she got the taste of what she wanted to do. It gave her a reference point and different skills she’d learnt. Just go to jump into opportunities. “If you get an opportunity, no matter how scared you are, just take it because I really believe the only things you regret in life are things you don’t do” and “Everything you do teaches you something”. From this she won a competition with KissFM. Then she wrote to Sky Sports for 5 years letting them know this is where she was and what she was doing and one day she was invited for an interview. She mentioned that she liked cricket and he started to question her on it – questions which were so specific and to the most minute of detail – most pundits on sky sports wouldn’t know this… BUT she had learnt all these facts the night before. She did her research!! She got her opportunity at sky sports news, and got the cricket presenter job. She took an opportunity and ran with it – “you never know where you’ll end up”. She applied for the job with F1 a few years later in 2011, got the job and then she was asked to move there and do that role full time in 2016. She now lives a life of going to F1 races all over the world and interviewing drivers. She says “see where life takes you, be tenacious, don’t give up on something you really want to do!” and “make the tea!!!”.

Next we had a talk from D2BD Ambassador, Clare Morden. Clare is a full time NHS intensive care and emergency GP. She has always wanted to be a doctor and worked hard to get there. Clare told us that ambition and goals may not make you as flexible as you want to be and that’s something to keep in mind as you progress in your career. She is a self-confessed motorsport geek and knew that motorsport is an industry that she wanted to work in but medicine is what drove her. Over the years there has been HUGE advances in medical care availability at circuits; there’s actually small hospitals at circuits now. Prof Sid Watkins was the man who designed this and made this happen and luckily he helped Clare along the way. Her advice for us all was that goals may seem unattainable, it dos take hard work and prep BUT you CAN DO IT!! Gender bias in the world of motorsport is still an issue, Clare speaks about how she feels the need to be better than her male peers because otherwise she can get easily overlooked. This is something that she didn’t actually think would exist and she still gets shocked now when people address junior male colleagues instead of her. She says its so important to have a good support system around you. “As a female there is a lot of things about having it all- you can! You just have to compromise things at different stages of your life. Re-adjust your priorities. Follow your dreams, combine your passions”! Clare expressed that D2BD gives you a wide scope of the areas you can go into in motorsport and using opportunity after opportunity is where you will meet people and get to where you want to be in life.

Following on from this we heard from Elizabeth Thompson - Aero Performance Engineer at Williams ROKiT Racing. Her job is “understanding and improving the aerodynamic limitation of the car”, downforce loss or gain and fixing parts that have possibly broken. She gets information during practice from the driver, they can look at data from sensors on the suspension etc. and then they can try to improve any flaws with a short term fix for the next session or a long-term fix by changing the design for a few races time. She loves the variety of her job. She had a science and math’s background at university but found it daunting having a wide range of opportunities as she wasn’t sure what direction she wanted to go into even in her 3rd and 4th year at university. Luckily, she saw an opportunity come up for an engineering scheme at Williams F1 team which she went for. Lizzy told us that she didn’t think she had a chance of getting it, it had never occurred to her that she could do so many things to do with engineering in the context of sport. She was so shocked when she got the position against 4 men. It’s taken her a few years to build confidence but she says its really nothing to worry about, just go for it! Its okay to not know what you want from life as things that are for you won’t go by you, just like her job at Williams. Advice: “everyone is on the same playing field, be prepared to show how much you want a job and do the best that you can in all you do.”

Finally, we heard from Clare Sibley - Head of Quality & Manufacturing Engineering at Williams ROKiT Racing. Science and maths were what she was good at when in school and she continued to love this topic when she went to university to study material science; this is understanding how and why things work the way that they do. Claire still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do once she finished university, however, she knew she loved the subject and wanted to apply it into her working life there after. Claire got into a graduate position with Mercedes High Performance Powertrain in 2010 which is when the V6 engine was being designed from the ground up; a very exciting role for a new graduate. Following her time with Mercedes she decided that she wanted to step up and start a new chapter in her career and got a job with Williams F1 as lead of the materials team. She says always take opportunities, discuss options with managers etc. about what you would like to do, have goals but also be flexible as you will find different strengths and weaknesses as you progress through your career.

Following these amazing talks and valuable insights to how these women have got into the world of F1 we were allowed to walk through the Williams F1 museum and wow… We will let the pictures do the talking…

As the day came to an end we were lucky enough to catch up with a couple of the ambassadors such as Clare Morden and Rachel Brookes. Clare spoke to Sach about how she could get some work experience on the medical side of F1 and the Rachel spoke to Soph about what to do if you want a career like hers. Rachel told Soph that you have to stand out, be passionate and get work experience/do something that employers will love! This chat is actually what initiated us to begin this blog; what better way is there to show an employer that you are invested in a subject and want an opportunity to come of it than a blog!? Rachel finished the chat to Sophie with “I will see you when you come to steal my job at F1” and that is something that will stick with her until she attains that goal… although, Soph hopes they can work alongside one another rather than steal her job hehe!

Thanks to this amazing experience with D2BD we have made friends for life with other women who are fans of or work in motorsport and for that we will always be grateful.

Sophie chatting to Rachel about her future plans and getting that expert advice.

Future work colleagues?? (hehe, lets hope)

Anyway, this was a looooong blog but one we hope you guys found interesting. If any of you would like more info on D2BD or just want someone to chat to about the common goal of getting into the motorsport industry, please message us @fs_formulas on insta or email us.

Chat soon,

Sach and Soph

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