It was the middle of last year when I decided to call it a day because I couldn’t really progress from a test driver role. I wanted to give something back to the sport that had given me so much and, together with the Motor Sports Association [the governing body of UK motorsport], we came up with Dare to be Different,, external a concept that would introduce more girls and women to on-track racing and all the different roles within motorsport.
There are two aspects to Dare to be Different. The first is the headline events – we go around the country and get 100 schoolgirls to a racetrack or a venue where they can try karting, build a hovercraft so they can see the engineering side, and do a ‘piece to camera’ so they can understand journalism.
The second element is the community, where we try to get as many of the successful women already in the sport – from marshalling, engineering, racing and marketing – to connect with us so they can become role models for the next generation.
There are some girls as young as eight all the way up to 16 in karting, and some 16 and over racing in other championships. I can follow what they’re doing and the whole community can follow what they’re doing.
There are some girls who have managed to get very high up – Swiss Simona de Silvestro, external has just signed a three-year deal to race in V8 Supercars, while Colombia’s Tatiana Calderon, external is racing in GP3. There are a select few women racers out there. Sadly, just not enough.
We’ve had fantastic support from the world of F1. People presume it is a very closed environment which isn’t welcoming to women but all of the F1 teams have very talented women. Claire Williams [deputy team principal] knows she’s a role model for the next generation because she is practically running the Williams racing team.
Sometimes in life you just have to see it to believe it.
One of the tougher parts for me coming through the various categories was the lack of a clear role model. There was no woman who had achieved what I wanted to achieve in the past 20 years. I was going into unknown territory. It’s very important to me to give something back – to pass on my know-how, to give all the lessons I learned onto the next generation so they don’t make the same mistakes.
Ultimately, when you’re out on track with your helmet on, nobody can see the driver. Nobody can judge you on what you look like if your hair is long or short, if you’re black or you’re white, if you’re male or female. All that matters is your performance. The stopwatch is the factor that determines your success or not.
Susie Wolff was speaking to BBC Sport’s Alan Jewell