Keywords

Introduction

The way in which most sport is organized today requires a certain level of wealth and privilege to sustain participation over time. This holds true for motorsports, including Formula E. Even if we remove the economic barriers of paying for membership and sport-specific equipment, sport is riddled with hidden requirements that exclude individuals from prolonged participation (see, e.g. Kingsley & Spencer-Cavaliere, 2015). Due to such hidden exclusion mechanisms, it is not enough to study interventions and projects that simply aim at including more of a certain excluded and marginalized group in sport, as there is little likelihood of such projects resulting in lasting sport participation. This is where social innovation comes into play. In contrast to economic-centred innovation perspectives that can be traced back to Schumpeter (1934, see also Chap. 1), social innovation is concerned with solving social issues (Nicholls et al., 2015) and tackling complex problems that cannot be solved by standard solutions or increased budgets (Kobro et al., 2018). Murray et al. (2010) define social innovation as:

New ideas that work to address pressing unmet needs, that are both social in their ends and in their means. Social innovations are new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships and collaborations. (Murray et al., 2010, p. 14)

Thus, social innovation in sport arises when athletes, coaches and sports organizations are faced with complex social issues that require new and creative solutions (Tjønndal, 2019). Studies of social innovation have explored issues such as social exclusion (Peterson & Schenker, 2017; Undlien, 2019a, 2019b), sport as a tool for the promotion of democracy (Gerrevall et al., 2018), innovation as new ways of organizing youth sports to avoid early drop out (Tjønndal, 2018) and innovative strategies to promote gender equality in sport (Hayhurst, 2014).

It is this latter topic that is of pressing importance to motorsport. Throughout its history, motorsports has been dominated by males and drenched with ideas that ‘racing spirit’, competitive characteristics and requirements for success are dependant on essential masculine traits (Kennedy, 2000; Pflugfelder, 2009; Shackleford, 1999; Sturm, 2011). With Formula E, however, there are tendencies that this domination is about to change due to the championship’s new perspectives on a key aspect of social innovation: ‘accessibility to sports, modes of transmission of sports knowledge and the organizing modalities for competitions’ (Duret & Angué, 2015, p. 374). The chapter therefore continues with a historical outline of why motorsport is so male-dominated before it turns to the establishment of FIA’s women in motorsport campaigns, in which Formula E has been instrumental in promoting. Thereafter, we outline two empirical cases of social innovation in motorsport: the W Series and FIA’s ‘Girls on Track—Dare to be Different’ initiative, in which Formula E in the latter became instrumental in developing. Along the way, theoretical aspects of social innovation in sport are outlined.

Countering the Male Dominance in Motorsport

Since the early twentieth century, cars have been seen as a male domain. Pflugfelder (2009) argues that a monopolization of knowledge and use of car-related technologies, partly as a consequence of the male dominance of the workforce during the industrial period, culminated in ‘the social and cultural construction of much technology as masculine’ (Pflugfelder, 2009, p. 45). As motor-racing reinforced these values by emphasizing daredevils and extravaganza, it therefore contributed to shaping gendered perceptions of women drivers (Matthews & Pike, 2016, p. 1535). Ironically, in the light of the all-electric Formula E’s focus on gender equality initiatives in the early twentieth century, petrol-driven cars were said to be masculine objects. Electric cars, however, with less noise and mechanics, were considered more appropriate for women. The short range of electric cars was not seen as a major problem, since women were ‘forbidden to stray far from home anyway’ (Gartman, 2004, p. 174). As women would have none of it, they instead campaigned for their own participation in motoring life and motorsports. Their allies included the media, at least in certain countries, and when a female heiress to a race track complex lifted the ban on female racers in the 1920s, it induced a wave of female participants in high-level motorsports (Bouzanquet, 2009; Matthews & Pike, 2016).

Despite this momentum, women have continued to be marginalized in motorsports, even after competing in Formula 1 in the 1950s and achieving notable results in the Monte Carlo Rally in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s—in the latter case with particular reference to the above-mentioned Michèle Mouton. Leader of FIA’s Women in Motorsport Commission (WMC), runner-up to the driver’s world championship in the WRC in 1982 and winner of Pike’s peak (the most famous hill climb event in the world), Mouton proved (as if that was necessary) that there was no biological or cultural reason as to why females could not be as fast as males in motorsport. Meanwhile, most likely due to the masculine ideals of motorsport and few societal incentives to change this perspective, major championships such as Formula 1 and WRC have been slow to acknowledge the potential of female drivers in general. There has not been a female driver in Formula 1 (only test drivers) since Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976, and since Michele Mouton left WRC in 1987 there has not been a top ten placement for a female driver in a WRC event at top level. Even so, many professional female racers have been recognized as highly skilled drivers. Among many, we can name Katherine Legge—a former works DTM touring car driver from 2008–2010—who drove for the Amlin Aguri team in Formula E in 2014–2015.

In this context, it cannot be denied that societal forces often constrain the empowerment of women in motorsport, and that individual grit will only take you so far. One reason is the common stereotyping and sexualization of women in motorsport spearheaded by Formula 1:

In its representational links to the broader contemporary male gadget culture, Formula One seems to be trapped in Stuff magazine territory or an early James Bond film franchise time bubble of gendered relations and technology … the predominantly male audience is addressed through imagery of pit babes or grid girls whose skimpy outfits (replete with corporate logos of course), passive roles (holding grid position number boards for care) and spray-on smiles associate “glamour” images with hi-tech race-cars and bravado-exhibiting male racing drivers in a fashion that is cartoonish in its perpetuation of old stereotypes. (Fleming & Sturm, 2011, p. 169)

In 2018, however, Formula 1 dropped grid girls in favour of ‘grid kids’, as the former was ‘at odds with modern day societal norms’.Footnote 1 The change led to an outcry by populist politicians, some fan groups, Formula 1 veterans, and, not least, the modelling community, represented by Kelly Brook who wrote for the British newspaper The Sun: ‘It’s probably not even occurred to these PC campaigners that the women might actually like the work.’Footnote 2 However, Tippett (2020) claims that grid girls are not just visual décor at motorsport events but rather normalize ‘restrictive gender roles in sport, with the acceptance of these roles reinforcing self-fulfilling prophecies of stereotypic beliefs and behaviours’ (p. 189). This removes the potential for seeing the grid girls debate as a productive example of the ‘transitionary nature of feminist thought’ (Tippett, 2020, p. 197), where freedom of choice is part and parcel of an empowerment strategy.

Surprisingly, around the time the Girls on Track project was launched, Formula E founder, Alejandro Agag, dismissed the grid girls topic as barely worth commenting on. Despite the official stance to remove grid girls, several Formula E races kept them—sometimes by blaming it on the demands from local sponsors. Agag was not too worried, though, and said: ‘For me, it’s not the most relevant issue today […] It should be a non-issue. Sometimes we use kids, sometimes we should use grid girls. They haven’t done anything bad, it’s part of the visual tradition of motorsport.’Footnote 3 Using a rhetoric similar to liberal feminists when discussing quotas and the like (Krook, 2008), as well as in the grid girls debate in Formula 1 (Tippett, 2020), Formula E co-founder Alberto Longo, the man who supported Susie Wolff’s gender equality initiative so eagerly, turned sour in 2019. In his view, Formula E—and here a poorly hidden criticism of W Series emerged—was the only championship that supported female representation in motorsport ‘on equal terms’ (as men). Therefore, he saw a false dichotomy between supporting Girls on Track while retaining grid girls: ‘It is a job like any other. And we have grid girls, grid boys, grid kids, and grids of everything.’Footnote 4

The Introduction of the Girls on Track Programme

Judging from the grid girls debate, achieving gender equality requires structural changes and social innovation initiatives from the motorsport organizations themselves. An example of the latter came from FIA in 2009, later the governing body of Formula E, when FIA’s Women in Motorsport Commission (WMC) was established. Originally the brainchild of Frédérique Trouvé, a sports lawyer who worked with FIA from 2000–2019, the aim was to increase the representation of women in motorsport and develop social and educational programmes for female racers. Backed by FIA’s management, among other things by establishing the official AUTO+ Women in Motorsport magazine, WMC nevertheless took its time to organize specific initiatives. Spearheaded by French motorsport personality Michele Mouton, WMC director and the most successful female motorsport athlete of all times, the first Women in Motorsport (WIM) International Seminar, organized by FIA, took place in Paris, France, in 2012, and the second in 2016 in Lisbon, Portugal. This led to eight recommendations for achieving FIA’s goals of gender equity in motorsport. These eight recommendations are summarized in Table. 5.1.

Table 5.1 WMC’s eight recommendations for reaching FIA’s goals of gender equality in motorsports
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At first, the responsibility for implementing these eight recommendations was handed over to each national motorsport authority. This was expected, because FIA consists of national member representatives that abide by global competition regulations in return for the benefits of membership. But despite the prizeworthy framework, FIA has no authority to instruct these clubs to follow gender equality initiatives and instead refers to best practice examples in the report. One example of best practice related to recommendations 2 and 6 is the Australian Women in Motorsport Commission (WAMS), where female motorsport officials are promoted in creative ways through social media in order to make girls and young women aware of them as role models. Still, as with gender initiatives in other male dominated sports, it seemingly takes more than goodwill from the international governing body to change the system.

In 2018, FIA’s WMC launched the Girls on Track project. This was a two-year project funded by the European Union’s (EU) Erasmus+ education and training programme to offer females aged 13–18 a chance to enter motorsports through karting. To boost the project further, a comprehensive toolkit on how to set up a national version of the Girls on Track project was published. National clubs could even apply for funding up to 50,000 euros.Footnote 5 During the closing conference of the Girls on Track project in Brussels on 2 October 2019, two results were presented. First, 22 events in 9 countries saw more than 1200 girls take part in the project’s activities during 2018, before a six-strong European Team was selected for the final at the Le Mans race track. From here, the six-person strong team attended two driver training camps, which included a sporting and an educational programme. After completing the training, the young women from Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal were asked to reflect on what they had learned. Only one of the participants named a particular motorsport championship that they eyed as a future career goal. Sweden’s Maja Hallén Fellenius had Formula E in sight and an open-wheel motorsport formula ‘to be the first female world champion there’.Footnote 6

One reason for this naming might be that shortly after the project’s launch Formula E came on stage with its own gender equality initiatives. One of the Girls on Track ambassadors, Susie Wolff, had already established her own foundation, Dare to be Different, in partnership with the British Motor Sports Association (MSA, now called Motorsport UK). A former professional racing driver who made it to Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM, a German-based, yet globally popular championship) and a test driver in Formula 1, Wolff retired in 2015 but then became team principal of the Venturi Formula E team in 2018. Due to these achievements, it was natural for FIA to ask for her viewpoints on how to extend the Girls on Track project. She raised the idea of increasing the age range to 8–18 years and a new initiative to run alongside selected events of the Formula E Championship with Formula E co-founder Alberto Longo, who immediately gave her the green light.Footnote 7 Subsequently, The Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative was launched in connection with the 2019 Mexico ePrix Formula E race. In contrast to the racing-oriented past of the Girls on Track project, Wolff pointed out that this new initiative targeted girls aged 8–18 years in all aspects of motorsport: from the track to the pits, from the gym to practical STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activities and from the accounting offices to the media booths.

While these initiatives have made an impact on the motorsport organizations’ view on women in motorsport, it seems that the social and cultural circumstances that play a large part in getting girls into motorsport have been underestimated as a force for change. As part of the Girls on Track project, researchers from the Centre for the Law and Economics of Sport (CDES) at the University of Limoges studied how the sport’s stakeholders and public institutions increased the level of female participation and helped to combat gender stereotypes in motorsport. Although the researchers received very positive feedback from the Girls on Track participants in terms of satisfaction and relevance, they also concluded that in order to overcome gender stereotypes girls and young women need role models, better access, family support and an inviting grassroots environment (FIA Foundation, 2020). What is not mentioned by the CDES researchers, is the question of quotas. This topic reached the top of the agenda as another championship emerged—W Series (W for Women)—at the same time as Girls on Track—Dare to be Different was launched. Engineered by Catherine Bond Muir, a British sports lawyer and corporate financier, the format of the W Series was simple, but effective: Female drivers only compete in identical cars on race tracks with some similarities to Formula 1, and see its all-female starting grid as:

essential in order to force greater female participation. W Series is a mission-led competition, the aim of which is not only to provide exciting racing for spectators and viewers on a global scale, but also to equip its drivers with experience and expertise with which they may progress their careers and eventually graduate to existing high-level mainstream racing series.Footnote 8

Although W Series emulated the structure of Formula 1, including petrol-powered cars, it also led to a heated debate about gender equality initiatives in motorsport, which we will return to below. As such, it became a ‘competitor’ to the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative, also in terms of the best way forward to decelerate gender inequality in motorsport. This begs the question of how managerial initiatives like Dare to be Different and the W Series represent social innovation in motorsport.

Social Innovation in Sport

Nicholls and Murdock (2012) suggest that social innovation can be conceptualized as three different types: (1) incremental social innovation, (2) institutional social innovation and (3) disruptive social innovation. Incremental social innovation is described as minor improvements in services or everyday practices at a micro level that seek to solve the social issues experienced by small groups of people. An example could be Hayhurst’s (2014) study of a martial arts programme for girls and women in Uganda. In the study she highlights how this programme is used to achieve gender equality for Ugandan girls by employing entrepreneurial tactics, such as training to be martial arts instructors, combined with agricultural activities, such as cultivating nuts. Hence, the martial arts programme encourages young women to become entrepreneurs themselves. Although her study can be read as an empirical example of incremental innovation in a sport for development programme, she concludes that even though these initiatives can bring some individual improvement for the women undertaking the martial arts programme, the programme itself overlooks the broader structural inequalities and gender relations that marginalize girls in the first place.

Institutional social innovations aim to change the existing social and/or economic structures by implementing social improvements. These innovations are aimed at the meso level and seek to find solutions to social problems experienced in larger organizations or networks of people (Nicholls & Murdock, 2012). An example of institutional social innovation in sport is Undlien’s (2017, 2019a, 2019b) studies of the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities as volunteers during the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Undlien’s studies show how this initiative created personal enjoyment during the event and had lasting social value, in that many of the volunteers were able to establish working relationships with local businesses and organizations that resulted in permanent jobs when the Games ended. Hence, institutional social innovations in sport differ from incremental social innovations in that they introduce improvements that go beyond the individual and affect organizations or networks of organizations. In Undlien’s case, this is represented by local businesses and organizations recruiting a more socially diverse workforce by including young adults with intellectual disabilities.

Lastly, Nicholls and Murdock (2012) describe disruptive social innovation as innovations that seek to radically alter social systems and structural power relations in favour of marginalized groups of people. These social innovations attempt to solve complex social issues at a macro level. Naturally, such radical innovations—which point to the major ramifications of disruptive innovation in general (Christensen et al., 2018)—are few and far between in sport and in other social contexts. Sporting events, such as the creation of the Paralympics, the Special Olympics or the Homeless World Cup in football, could be counted as examples of disruptive social innovations in sport. An issue with disruptive social innovations is that it is hard to determine when something is ‘new enough’ or ‘radical enough’ to be considered a disruptive social innovation. For instance, have the Paralympics or the Special Olympics radically altered the structural power relations in sport? Most people would answer no to this question. The white, able-bodied man is still at the top of the hierarchy in the (elite) sporting world, while the disabled athlete remains marginalized and marked as ‘the deviant’. Do, then, the Paralympics and the Special Olympics truly represent disruptive social innovation in sport? If they are not examples of disruptive social innovation in sport, then what is?

Unable here to pursue that debate further, we continue with assessing the type of Formula E’s social innovation by comparing its contribution to Girls on Track—Dare to be Different with the recent development of the W Series. We examine these initiatives through Hean’s (2015) four phases that an idea has to go through to become social innovation. The first phase is the identification of a social need, the second is the development of solutions and responses to this social need, the third is the evaluation of the effectiveness of the new solutions (how effectively do they solve the social need?) and the fourth is the spread and adoption of successful social innovation. Table 5.2 presents a comparative look at how the FIA/Formula E collaboration and W Series fit into Hean’s (2015) framework.

Table 5.2 Gender equality initiatives as social innovations in sport
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Although the initiatives from the FIA and the W Series indicated in Table 5.2 share the same initial problem, their solutions diversify from phase two of Hean’s (2015) model. In terms of developing a solution, the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative acts as a leverage to encourage girls and young women aged between 8 and 18 to get involved in motorsport at the grassroots level, but where the result of this involvement is a mixed gender motorsport environment. Susie Wolff is adamant that ‘men and women should compete together. You get the best men and women that rise to the top. My main argument is that there’s not enough girls even at grassroots level, so that in turn makes the numbers much smaller as you head further towards the top levels of motorsport. You have to go much further down the ladder, to even start that idea’ (cited from Hicks, 2018). Invitations to join the activities related to a racing event are sent out to various schools in the region just before it is due to take place. Similarly, Mouton said: ‘For us, the most important thing is to increase [numbers at] the base of the pyramid. If we want to have more women at the top, we have to increase this base of the pyramid.’Footnote 9 Bond Muir, on the other hand, who unlike Wolff and Mouton had no experience of motorsports but a lot of experience of sports law, viewed W Series as a game-changer:

We are proudly disruptive, and W Series is committed to tackling gender imbalance in the sport that we all love (…) We all want the same things ultimately—mixed grids of male and female drivers competing against each other in elite motorsport. The current system has had over 50 years to identify and develop female Formula One drivers, so we believe the time is right for a radical new approach. If you do what you did, as they say, you get what you got.Footnote 10

Reactions to this segregation policy were mixed. Some argued rather expectedly that it was a step backwards, because it would lead to speculation about whether the results and entry to other series—partly due to the prize money of 500,000 GBP, which to sponsor-starved female racers is a considerable sum—were the outcome of gender quotas rather than performance. British motorsport driver Pippa Mann claimed that the whole concept lacked credibility:

Three years ago I received an email. It was the type of email that makes your skin crawl and your blood boil. A consortium in Europe had unilaterally decided that what female racing drivers needed to further their careers was not the funding to keep racing, not support, and not the choice to race where-ever their experience placed them best, but instead that segregation was the way forwards. What’s even worse than this idea is the fact that these clowns were serious (…) This stripping of power away from female athletes, in one of the few sports where men and women can and do compete equally, was being presented as a way to empower us? No thank you.Footnote 11

Others approved of the idea, but found the incentive too poorly designed to achieve the overall targets. Former Formula E driver Katherine Legge, in 2019 the first female driver to win a race during an ABB FIA Formula E weekend in the Jaguar I-PACE support series, was principally against the concept, but saw it as a Faustian bargain:

I think part of me is against it because I think you have to race against the best. So, in a way, I think it’s putting the spotlight on women in a negative connotation. Why segregate us? It’s one of the sports where men and women can compete on equal footing. So I think it’s a step backwards in that respect. Then I think, well, if I didn’t have the money and I wanted to go into racing and they’re offering this big purse, and then maybe if you shone there then you would get the opportunity that you wouldn’t have had necessarily… I can see that, too. It’s “tbc” in my mind.Footnote 12

This view was shared by Ayla Ågren, who is the only female driver to have won a major racing championship and one of the selected drivers for the 2020 season in W Series. At first she thought it was ‘lame’ to have a separate championship for female drivers, but later changed her mind: ‘It is a fantastic opportunity to show what you got, and with success it may open some new doors in the future.’Footnote 13

A third view was put forward by former Formula E and Formula 1 test driver Simona de Silvestro, who played a major part in the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative. She suggested that the W Series prize fund would be better invested in a scholarship system to support the development of talent across a wider range of motorsport disciplines. One example mentioned by Silvestro was an electric junior series where potential talent could be nurtured.Footnote 14 As part of this she also called on major motorsport backers like Red Bull to invest in female motorsport talents which, compared with other female athletes sponsored by the Austrian brand, are more or less invisible. In European motorsport, Catie Munnings became the first female motorsport athlete in the UK to earn backing from Red Bull in 2019. Some even changed their minds completely about W Series. Claire Williams, the deputy team principal of the Williams Formula One team, and one of the most powerful women in the sport, told the New York Times in May 2019 that she was ‘worried that it was a regressive step for women in motorsport and the promotion of that, purely from a segregation perspective’. Eventually, she acknowledged the aim of the series’ creators, because ‘it gives a platform for women that they don’t have at the moment, and if anything accelerates the process of promoting women in motorsport.’Footnote 15

This split continued into Hean’s third phase, the evaluation of the solution. By partnering with Formula E, the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative is used by FIA as a template for other championships. According to Mouton, FIA ‘wants to showcase how the format of the event can be replicated by the FIA’s national sporting authorities in many different countries, which is really important to support the on-going and increased participation of young women in our sport worldwide’.Footnote 16 Support from the EU in funding the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative also created a link to societal development programmes outside motorsport with an emphasis on gender equality initiatives, for example those related to Agenda 2030s Sustainable Development Goals. However, W Series left national member clubs to FIA and targeted other high-level championships, because it seemed like a more efficient way of accelerating the entry of a female driver into Formula 1. A breakthrough came with the 2020 season plan—before the COVID-19 pandemic—which included six races on the DTM platform, as well as a support series at the Formula 1 races in Austin, in the US, and in Mexico City. Ross James Brawn, the British Formula 1 managing director of motorsports and technical director with a long history of running successful Formula 1 teams, said: ‘We are convinced that our sport must offer equal opportunities for men and women to compete together—it is no coincidence that improving the diversity of the F1 grid by supporting and promoting driver talent from underrepresented backgrounds is one of our strategic objectives.’Footnote 17 Much of this optimism was caused by the change in 2020, where the top eight drivers in the championship collect points for FIA’s Super Licence system—a system that allows drivers to take part in Formula 1.

With regard to Hean’s fourth phase (2015), the spread and adoption of successful social innovation, Formula E’s initiatives are about rejuvenating the neoliberal element in motorsport. Although cash has been king in motorsport for the past 100 years and is captured in the slogan ‘if you want to make a small fortune in motorsport you need to begin with a big one’, there would seem to be a deeper ambition behind The Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative. Wolff, again: ‘I’m not doing what I do to prove what a woman is capable of. I’m not doing what I do to make Formula E more diverse. I’m doing what I do to be successful. If that’s inspirational, then great.’Footnote 18 Muir’s W Series underlined that it was more than a gender equality initiative confined to the race track, which is reflected in its commercial strategy. In other words, she relies on market forces to solve gender inequality. Apart from inducing social change on its own, Muir’s W Series seeks to attract sponsors by offering more than ‘a sticker on the car, or the sleeve of a race suit. We want to work with sponsors who will help to tell our story and move the conversation along. Motorsport has been a macho environment and we want to change that, so we want sponsors and partners who are going to do the same.’Footnote 19 It is therefore reasonable to speculate as to whether this motive influenced the selection of W Series drivers. First, 54 contestants were reduced to 28 after a ‘shootout’ session, who were then selected to fight for the top 18 positions. The selection, which followed a purported 70/30 per cent split in weight between driving and non-driving categories (e.g. team exercises, a presentation and fitness tests), was hotly debated because the evaluation criteria were not made public.Footnote 20 One of the participants even posted on Instagram: ‘They weren’t looking for the fastest driver but the complete package.’

So where does this leave Formula E in contrast to W Series in terms of social innovation? None of them can be said to represent a disruptive social innovation. Neither Formula E nor W Series sufficiently take into account the challenge that was pointed out by the CDES research team when assessing the Girls on Track project as a case study of gender equality initiatives in motorsport. The report highlighted that meritocratic ideals and target-focused initiatives for female motorsport representation do not fit well with the realities of socio-economic backgrounds, national sporting organization resources and cultural norms that create glass ceilings for females in motorsport (FIA Foundation, 2020). A similar sentiment was shared by Danielle Geel, a former go-karter turned management consultant to Dutch-based Van Amersfoort Racing (which is competing in the FIA F3 European Championship, often named as a feeder series to Formula 1), who in 2018 received a lot of attention for her TedX Talk about being female in a male-dominated sport. Eyeing a top management position in Formula 1, Geel was resolute in her view: ‘I think it’s [the W Series] a good initiative to take a position: women can also race. I compare it a bit with the female quota in the Netherlands. It is good that it is there, but it does not solve the core problem.’Footnote 21 This is worth emphasizing, especially as the study only looked at participants from European countries, thus leaving out Asia, where motorsport is a major industry and home to industrial giants like Hyundai and Toyota where corporate culture is conservative by many standards (Won & Steers, 2012).

On the positive side, Formula E’s role in the Girls on Track project has enabled incremental social innovation by integrating gender equality initiatives in their official career development scheme. To some degree, this move has also provided institutional social innovation. Although W Series will probably produce top-level female racing drivers at a faster rate than the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative, the social ramifications are expected to be spread across multiple arenas, which in the long run should enhance female representation in motorsport due to its summative influence on gender equality. One of the reasons for this is the toolkit and funding opportunities that have been made available to all FIA member clubs on how to spark girls’ and young women’s own track initiatives. What is more, social innovations are often complex and time-consuming processes and are not automatically, or always, positive. Social innovation processes can even lead to unintended consequences that negatively impact the implementation phase of the innovation (Sørensen & Torfing, 2012), such as sports policies or programmes aimed at the social inclusion of a specific target group, or projects aimed at increasing minority groups’ participation in sport.

Conclusion

The Formula E’s intention and managerial operationalization of social innovation in motorsport has played a significant part in setting the agenda for how to achieve gender equality. Although the idea originated within the FIA, the promotion of it and the follow-up of the female motorsport talents are very much dependent on Formula E’s continued efforts. In terms of managing social innovation towards a disruptive level, which can be seen as necessary to revoke gender inequality in motorsport, Formula E is however hampered by its ‘organizational hypocrisy’ as exemplified by the debate on grid girls, that is, the situation where an organization satisfies one demand through talk, decides in a way that satisfies another and supplies services in a way that satisfies a third (Brunsson, 2006). The other reason why W Series and the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative might have failed to achieve gender equality—as in equal opportunities and not just harnessing the top talent—in motorsports is that neither FIA nor W Series addresses the societal factors that ultimately influence female athletes’ opportunities. For that reason, the FIA-backed Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative cannot be considered a disruptive social innovation in sport, although it can be seen as a precondition for getting there. The initiative benefits from the Formula E association more than W Series, despite some operational flaws and the fact that Formula E’s operationalization of gender equality ideas is potentially delegitimized by its contradictory practices.

At the same time we don’t see the W Series as a benchmark on gender equality initiatives in motorsport. To achieve disruptive social innovation more than quotas is required. For example, the inclusion of women’s boxing in the 2012 Olympics in London can at first sight be seen as a disruptive social innovation in sport, in that it grants female athletes worldwide access to a realm of elite sport that was previously closed to them (Tjønndal, 2019). On the one hand, the inclusion of women’s boxing as an Olympic sport led to many countries increasing their resources for female boxing. On the other hand, women boxers have fewer spots in the Olympics than men. In the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, 54 slots have been allocated to female boxers, compared to 230 for their male counterparts. Hence, even though women now have access to the Olympic boxing ring, men still dominate the boxing world and the structural gendered power relations remain unchanged. This leads us to conclude that given that a disruptive social innovation in sport requires major changes in society, the introduction of inequality reducing mechanisms needs to be combined with changes in the perception of women in sport.

Because that change in motorsports requires media attention for other reasons than quota discussions, a new Formula E spinoff entrepreneured by Agag, called extreme E, shows a promising potential in this respect. Starting in 2021 it is an electric off-road racing series with events in the Himalayas and the Brazilian jungle where teams are composed of a male and a female driver competing together in every race.Footnote 22 In this light, it is too early to pass judgement on how the Girls on Track—Dare to be Different initiative and Formula E management proposals have impacted gender equality in motorsport. Our examination of Formula E’s contribution to social innovation in sport nevertheless reveals a potential for change. By allowing innovative ideas on gender equality to become part of the championship along the way, Formula E has become exposed to the societal barriers to more females in motorsport, which is a necessary next step to address if the gender equality efforts are to have the desired impact.