Marta García: "I'd rather be the only woman in Formula 1 than race in a female category"

2009. Dénia. A father watches Formula 1 on television, Fernando Alonso still in Renault, Jenson Button chaining victories, and at the end he addresses his daughters.

– “Do you want us to go karting?”

– “To what?”

– “Go-karting”.

– “Well”.

“We liked it a lot, the following month we returned and it became routine, every weekend we went to the Las Palmeras karting, in Sueca, to go around. Then, in the summer, I went to see a race and when they started I said: 'I want to do this, I want to compete'. I was learning, I was second in the Spanish juvenile championship and so on”. It seems easy.

Marta García (Dénia, 2000) is today the leader of the F1 Academy, the women's competition created by Formula 1 itself to train pilots. The idea, according to Stefano Domenicali, president and CEO of the World Cup, is that in two or three years there will be several women in Formula 3, that some will reach Formula 2 and that sooner or later, perhaps, who knows, one will reach heaven. of motoring.

Despite the fact that in recent seasons there have been up to seven test drivers -among them María de Villota or Carmen Jordà-, only five women have competed in Formula 1 in its entire history and the last one to do so, Giovanna Amati, did so. in 1992. This huge void, exclusive to the engine, collides with the advancement of society and the championship organization, aware of this, has decided to invest. In fact, there is the possibility that a women's Formula 1 will end up being created, an event only for women like the one that MotoGP is preparing for 2024.

Would you rather be the only woman in current Formula 1 or compete in an exclusively female Formula 1? Being who I am I would love to be the only girl in Formula 1, although I know it is very difficult. I will need a lot of preparation, a lot of financial support and, in the end, a lot of talent. I don't know if I'll ever be that good. Each category jump costs and you have to be very fast. I wouldn't dislike a female category either, really, but I've grown up watching Formula 1 and being there…. puff!

After that discovery of speed with her father in the Las Palmeras de Sueca karting, Marta García swept international karting competitions: in 2015 she won the FIA Karting Academy Championship and events such as the Trofeo delle Industrie, an emblematic race that long ago they took Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel. The horizon was clear.

“It was very funny. Now it has changed a bit, there are more girls than before, but I started 10 years ago and I was almost always the only girl. They were all super-aggressive with me, they all wanted to pass me back and, in the end, they beat me from behind and sent me to fry asparagus.. Over time I decided that if someone sent someone else to fry asparagus it would be me”, recalls García who later, with the jump to single-seaters, found himself before the abyss. From winning in international karting to suffering, and a lot, in the Spanish Formula 4 Championship. What was the way? “I was lost. It was a pretty hard blow because I started to think that I was worthless, that driving was not my thing.. The problem was that nobody explained to me how a car works, what happens when you accelerate or when you brake, how to balance the weights. I trained, trained, trained and didn't understand anything”, recalls García who, shortly after, almost left him.

a blank year

The years going around with his father and his sister, the illusion of following in the footsteps of Alonso and Hamilton -his two idols-, the kart races won all over Europe, the money invested in trips by the family…. All for nothing. Luckily, the W Series appeared. After a blank 2018, almost retired at the age of 18, García received the invitation to participate in the then newly created women's competition, predecessor of the current F1 Academy.. And that invitation saved his career. In his first test, he was on the podium. then a win. In the end, fourth in the championship.

“The W Series helped me because I didn't have a team and I had the opportunity to re-engage, to compete for three seasons, but nobody taught me either.. I can say that it is now, that it is this year, when I begin to understand how to drive a single-seater”, comments García, who this season has accumulated three victories and three podiums in nine races and leads the second, the Emirati Hamda Al Qubaisi, with 41 points .

In the F1 Academy they also hope to make the drivers known to the public and that is why they are recording a documentary as 'Drive to Survive', although the races are not yet broadcast live. They will be issued, it is assumed, next year, when the event is held on the same circuits, the same days as Formula 1. “I hope that the entire F1 Academy project grows big and helps to make visible that the engine is also for women. I don't know if we will ever make it to Formula 1, but at least we will open the way,” García concludes many years after that question from his father.

– “Do you want us to go karting?”

– “To what?”

– “Go-karting.”

– “Well”.