The Girls on Track UK initiative celebrated its tenth anniversary last weekend, holding an event at London’s Royal Automobile Club with over 200 of its ‘community members’ present, many being women who are now involved full time in motor sport.

Originally Founded as Dare to be Different in 2016 by F1 Academy boss and former racing driver Suzie Wolff, the initiative merged with the FIA’s Girls on Track programme in 2019, having since gone from strength to strength.

The UK initiative’s merger occurred under the stewardship of programme leader Jenny Fletcher, with support from Motorsport UK’s CEO Hugh Chambers and chairman David Richards. For the last ten years it has run networking conferences, held educational events at schools and given crucial career advice to women seeking to become involved in the sport.

Several leading motor sport figures were present, including former Williams team principal Claire Williams, F1 TV presenter Ariana Bravo (also supported by GoT) and Chambers himself.

Girls on Track UK now boasts 11,000 community members in total, who have either been helped by the initiative or are on-hand to give advice.

“Attitudes to women and motor sport has significantly changed over the years,” said Williams in paying tribute to the programme.

“It’s not [a] unique [problem] to motor sport, but what it takes is people being willing to step up, have a voice and make change.

“Many congratulations to Jenny and everybody for this brilliant initiative. It is so powerful, and you’re very lucky that it exists, because it certainly didn’t when I started my career.”

Wolff also spoke via a video message, saying: “I think you’ll all agree we’re making good progress.

“It’s definitely been a collective effort from the Girls on Track team, who keep doing a fantastic job. And at F1 Academy, we keep going, giving opportunities to young women.”

A number of young professionals and students now making their way in the world of motor sport also shared their experience of how GoT had a tangible influence on their career for the better.

Two of the real success stories are Matilda Walker, an assembly technician apprentice at Mercedes’ High Performance Powertrains in Brackley, and Amy Scerri, a composite manufacturing engineer with the Mercedes F1 team.

“I vividly remember going to Autosport International in 2018 and having a very long conversation with Jenny,” said Walker.

“I was in a school setting where I wasn’t really being encouraged too much, but being introduced to the Girls on Track community, where I had friendships and people to look up to that were supporting me, helped me to make the decision to change school, get my diploma, apply for internships – just having that support network really helped.”

“I would say the main thing is self-belief,” added Scerri. “Even if you think you don’t belong, if you just believe in yourself, then you will have the confidence to get opportunities.”

Images supplied by @jordantaylorphoto.