Susie Wolff has spent her career fighting to infiltrate a man’s world. In 2014 she became the first woman in 22 years to take part in a Formula 1 race. But the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is where the chequered flag finally came down.
For Susie Wolff, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the end, the opportunity to bid farewell to Formula 1 and a trailblazing motorsport career, the weekend she officially hung up her racing overalls for the final time.
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March was the first inkling it was the beginning of the end for the Scot when the Williams test driver was told rather publicly she would not be considered to stand in for Valtteri Bottas if the Finn did not recover from a back injury for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
It was the first time the fire that had burned so brightly ever since that eightyear- old blonde with the tight bunches first took the wheel of a kart in her native Scotland had been extinguished.
Having become the first woman to compete at a Formula 1 weekend since Giovanna Amati in 1992 when she lined up to test at last season’s British Grand Prix, her career ends with her not having quite attained her ultimate goal.
Over and out. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/bRiNt09g9v
— Susie Wolff (@Susie_Wolff) November 21, 2015
“The goal was to get on the starting grid,” she admits. “I got oh so close and part of me would still love to get on the grid. But I can look back and say I gave it my all, I didn’t leave any stone unturned.”
In the months on from March with the partial rejection from Williams and no other race drives coming her way, it became clear to her that she had taken herself as far as she was ever going to ever go in motorsport’s higher echelons.
“As much as you can be ambitious and ruthless you have to know when it’s not going to be achieved,” she says. “It became clear that it was going to be incredibly difficult to carry on and get more than I had this year.”
There is no shame in that, far from it. Her career CV might be missing that F1 race drive but hers is a career of firsts: the first woman to score points in the DTM (German touring cars) for two decades and the first to compete at the prestigious end of season Race Of Champions.
And there is no denying she was quick. I had first-hand experience of her race craft strapped into the passenger seat alongside her at the aforementioned Race Of Champions in Barbados last year where she proved a match for former F1, Indy Car, Le Mans and rally winners.
Among those was the former F1 driver David Coulthard, who explained the issue thus: “She’s talented, she’s got speed. The difficulty, which is the same as any other racer, male or female, is that being good isn’t enough – being exceptional is what Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are. That’s the big challenge.”
“It’s emotional but it feels like the right time to stop on my own terms. It actually feels good” – Wolff
Wolff’s own decision to walk away was made two months ago after lengthy discussions with her husband Toto Wolff, the executive chairman of the Mercedes F1 team, but not announced until early November.
Having had time to digest the decision, she says: “At the beginning of the year, I had the harsh reality of what it looks like in F1 next year. So I said to myself, ‘I’ve got as far as I can get and I’m not willing to just drive the car a couple of times’.
“It felt right, I’m glad to move on. It’s emotional but it feels like the right time to be able to stop on my own terms. It actually feels good.”
There is no bitterness towards Williams, who gave her the F1 chance after all but deemed her unworthy to race.
Instead, she says: “That was a tough moment but you need to have tough times to see the reality.
“I realised the chance of a race drive wasn’t going to come. It was a hit in the face but you have to see both sides.
“They felt at the time they had a car capable of the podium possibly even a win and there was a driver that had never done a race before. It wasn’t good for my ego obviously but you can see their perspective.”
While there might be a modicum of ‘oh so close’ on her sporting epitaph, Wolff’s impact may not actually be felt for some years hence.
“We have to stop this stereotype that for girls it’s about being in pink and horse riding. We need to teach kids to think outside the box, to dare girls to be different,” she adds.
For the most part, Wolff was the archetypal girl growing up. She too loved pink and playing with her Barbies, she also just happened to share the family’s motorsport passion – her mother Sally met her father John when she walked into a shop to buy a motorbike.
#F1 #AbuDhabiGP Thank you @Susie_Wolff for commending Hamda the #SpeedyGirl Al Qubaisi’s progress 
#Karting pic.twitter.com/XsTNf1baez
— AbuDhabiRacing (@AbuDhabiRacing1) November 29, 2015
Her actual racing farewell came the weekend before Abu Dhabi at the Race Of Champions in London and, after that, she has other plans most of which will be announced in due course. One is to work with the Motor Sports Association to get more girls into motorsport, and family plans are also in the pipeline at the age of 32.
She is adamant that the latter subject was not part of her thinking in retirement but always knew that becoming a parent was not going to be possible while racing.
“The reality is that family is on the cards in the future,” she says. “But you know in motorsport if you take yourself off to have children, you won’t come back, partly as you’re quickly forgotten in this sport. But I wouldn’t compete at this level with children.”
From a Formula 1 perspective, she hopes simply that she has “paved the way” for someone else to follow in her footsteps and possibly take things that step further and follow her mantra and number one strength in her career.
“For me it’s about determination, refusing to give up until the last door is closed,” she says. For Wolff, that door has now closed but, in all likelihood, she has opened one for many to follow.
