Anyone else getting a bit sick of Virgin Australia Supercars Championship commentator Mark Skaife constantly talking up the talent and achievements of Simona de Silvestro?
I wish the Swiss-born journey(wo)man no ill will. Good on her in fact, for using what talent she has, to such good effect. Before she washed up in Australia, the now 29-year-old actually spent four seasons racing Indycars in the US as well as a year as an ‘intern of sorts’ with the Sauber F1 team.
The problem I have is with old mate Skaifey and the whole ‘Simona did this, Simona did that, didn’t Simona do well?’ narrative.
“You’re got to be kidding me?” I’ve found myself saying to no-one in particular on more than one occasion in the four years since Simona’s first Supercars gig.
Her heavily hyped Bathurst entry was hardly an auspicious debut and in the three years since, bar her ability to attract – and keep – a major sponsor (no mean feat in itself) I haven’t seen anything remotely like the sort of talent, flair, or even media-friendliness/social media star influencer status that would keep a bloke with a similar set of results to his name in a car.
The whole thing, from the Harvey Norman sponsorship down, I’m afraid, smacks of tokenism. And – in my humble opinion – reflects poorly on the series and our sport.
Or at least it does across the Tasman.
Here, where need I remind you, women first got the vote way back in 1893 (in Australia they had to wait another nine years until 1902) we are far more enlightened. To the point where some of our best young drivers in karts, the acknowledged breeding ground of the next generation of champions, are female.
I’m talking in particular about karters Madeline Stewart and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt (pictured).
Both Wellington teens (Stewart is 17, O’Meara-Hunt, 16) have been racing at a national level here and across the Tasman for the past three years, In fact, early last year the pair made history with emphatic class wins at the second round of the Australia’s Rotax Pro Tour series at Monarto in South Australia.
Not only was Stewart’s win in the Rotax Light class the first for a female driver on the Rotax Pro Tour – now in its 17th year – it was also the first by a female driver in a major Australian karting event in at least 10 years.
Incredibly, it was backed up by O’Meara-Hunt’s own debut Australian win in the Rotax Junior class.
Ironically, as many a promising male driver has found over the years, the limiting factor is not so much gender, as it is the depth of your (or rather your parents/backers) pockets. Sure, as happened with both Scott Dixon and Shane Van Gisbergen, if your star shines that brightly in the Junior formula here money to help smooth your path does materialise.
Unfortunately the right dollars often end up behind the wrong kid (usually though not always the son – or daughter – of the bloke or sponsor with the big bucks) and you end up with, well, Simona de Silvestro. And as far as Supercars goes I think it is going to get worse before it gets better.
Just the other day, I read that as part of a wide-ranging push for diversity, Holden was looking at persuading one of its teams to run a female driver in next year’s Virgin Australia Supercar Championships with Simona’s name raised as one of the possibilities should Nissan pull the plug on the Kelly team!!
A more enlightened scenario might be to set a ‘Junior Female Driver’ pathway programme modelled on the successful ones run by BMW and Porsche. For a start you would cast your net wide to maximise the news coverage meaning your first ‘draft’ would include the likes of rally ace Emma Gilmour and drifter Jodie Verhulst as well as ex karter Chelsea Herbert and current karters Madeline Stewart and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt.
Put together a three-to-five year programme with measured steps from karts through – say Toyota’s 86 series here and across the Tasman – then the Dunlop Super 2 series in Australia and see who emerges out the other end….
If nothing else old Skaifey wouldn’t have to crane his neck so far to see where ‘the Kiwi girl’ was on the grid. Because if it was Madeline or Rianna, for instance, only the front row (or at a pinch) the second would be good enough.
Like their male counterparts Scottie and Shane, they race to win, not just to make up the numbers. It’s the Kiwi way. And it has been, for male or female, since ages ago!
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