Rising star female racing driver Jamie Chadwick puts ‘Bungling Bernie’ Ecclestone in his place and dismisses his ridiculous misogynist views
The first ever female and youngest ever winner of the British GT Championship Jamie Chadwick was interviewed in The Guardian last weekend.
Speaking to the paper’s Giles Richards, 19-year-old Chadwick criticized Bernie Ecclestone’s 2016 remarks at an advertising conference about female participation in F1 in London. At the time ‘Bungling Bernie’ remarked: “I don’t know whether a woman would physically be able to drive an F1 car quickly, and they wouldn’t be taken seriously.”
In response, Chadwick candidly stated: “[Ecclestone’s views are] not based on any fact. If I can prove him wrong that’s just added motivation… Everywhere I have gone everyone has respected that I am there to do a job. If I don’t do it I get the same bollocking a male driver would get and if I do I get the same praise.”
She added: “You don’t want a female to be there as a token effort. You have to have made it on merit. The worst thing that could happen would be if you put someone in who could not compete. It would make a mockery of those who are trying to achieve good things.”
Back in 2016, at the same conference, Ecclestone shared other views that were not exactly considered logical. He also bizarrely suggested that Vladimir Putin “should be running Europe” and expressed his support for Donald Trump to become 45th POTUS. In his dotage, one is left wondering if this little dwarf-like man has been spending too much time watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.