Sky Sports F1 Podcast: Jessica Hawkins: F1 history maker | 'The car is like a spaceship!'

Hello, and welcome to the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. I hope you're doing okay.

Today we've got a really special episode because I'm joined by Jessica Hawkins,

stunt driver, racing driver, and Aston Martin ambassador. How are you doing, Jess?

Good thanks. How are you? I'm very well. We're speaking to you today. It's a pretty special

day, isn't it? Because today you have tested a Formula One car.

Crazy. Best day of my life. Best day of my life, Matt.

Best day of your life. I guess the first question is, how was it? Was it pretty good?

I don't even know what to say. Incredible, firstly, and just to be given this opportunity

by the team to have that much trust and belief from them is incredible and genuinely it's been

the best day of my life. Tell me, take me inside the cockpit. How does it feel to drive it?

For those of us who will never get to do that, I'm going to definitely put myself in that category.

Tell us how it actually feels to drive a Formula One car.

It's like a spaceship. Not that I know what a spaceship feels like, but that's the closest

I'll probably ever get. The braking, the acceleration, the corner speeds, incredible.

It's shocking that it's actually possible, but yeah, it's everything I ever dreamt it to be and

more. What were your expectations then? Take us back to the last few weeks. You've obviously

been sort of psyching yourself up for it. What were you expecting the Formula One car to feel like

and how much of that turned into reality? Well, I've spent a lot of time on the Sim,

so it wasn't completely alien. The only thing is on the Sim, obviously, you don't have G-forces and

real kind of feeling, but it felt very similar to the Sim just with a lot of G-Force. A lot of

you stop. When you press the brake, you stop and you stop fast. When you put your foot down,

you accelerate and you accelerate fast. Yeah. Honestly, I'm lost for words,

to be honest, to be quite honest. It's incredible. As I said, it's been everything that I dreamt

it to be and more. What about that Sim prep then? Because there's all sorts of different

types of simulators all the way from eSim races all the way through to what you've been obviously

doing at the Aston Martin factory, which is a whole other level. How good are simulators now

to replicate the feeling of a Formula One car? Incredible, incredible. We obviously weren't in

full quality mode today, but for instance, we're able to replicate the modes that we're in today,

back to the simulator, and we're very, very close to the times that we're doing in the simulator,

which is incredible, really. We can set temperatures, wind direction, every single

possible thing that you could set, you can set. We're very, very close to what we're doing in

the simulator, different modes, etc. It's mind-blowing, really. Honestly, it's mind-blowing.

How has that helped your development as well in terms of getting you ready for today? Because I

guess if you think about getting into a Formula One car, there's obviously so much goes on,

there's so many people around you, all of the commands and everything, and I guess

you knew everything that was going to happen before it happened.

The sim is absolutely key in getting yourself prepared, focused, processes. There's obviously

lots of buttons on the steering wheel, and that's an opportunity to practice everything that you

could possibly need to ensure that I was ready as I could be for this test, and yeah, it has been

absolutely key. Not only, obviously, for today, but with racing as well. It's, I guess, the next

best thing to driving it in real life, and it's incredible how close you can get to the real thing.

It's really, really key. Luckily, I'd raced here before, so the circuit I kind of knew.

But even when you go to new circuits, if this was a circuit that I hadn't been to,

I would know it having driven the sim, having driven so many laps on the sim, so very, very,

very similar. It's going to help, isn't it, developing younger drivers for years to come?

And it's funny because it's only come about, or sims have always been around, but I feel like

since lockdown, kind of the use of simulators, especially for maybe the lower-ranked racing,

has just increased massively, and I think it really shows.

One thing a sim can't replicate is physical feelings. How do you feel in terms of your neck

and how you saw? Like, what are you feeling?

I was quite surprised that the steering is obviously not light, but my arms feel fine.

Obviously, I didn't do a race run, so it's, I'm not as, I didn't do as many laps as what I would

have done in a race, but I was pleasantly surprised at how I came my arms up. Having said that, I've

done lots and lots and lots. You should probably point out that Felipe, one of your other drivers

asked about his testing as well. If you hear the engine noise, that's what it is, apologies.

Felipe's doing his thing. Where was I? Physical. Yes, but I was pleasantly surprised at how

not easy it was, but the steering is lighter than what I was expecting, but obviously the neck,

there's no shying away from the neck, and I wasn't holding back, so I was quite close to the limit,

I think. So yeah, I will be certainly have a sore neck tomorrow morning, probably,

but yeah, pleasantly surprised. My braking was, I was hitting really good peak pressures and things,

and yeah, but as I said, that was not a race run, so probably be a different story had it been a

race run. How have you approached the test? Have you tried to incrementally just sort of increase

finding the limit lap by lap? Is that sort of how you would go about it? On the simulator?

Sorry, in real life, today, because I guess you don't want to go out all guns blazing. Do you want

to feel the limit, given it's your first time in a Formula One car? I kind of, I know, I've

obviously never driven a Formula One car. I've not driven FIF2, FIF3, so it's a massive jump for me,

but the sim has gone so well, that's why I guess why, you know,

the team wouldn't let me near the Formula One car if they didn't think I was ready.

My in-stool lap, so before it rained, or actually after it rained, but then it rained again,

my in-stool lap was the opportunity that I took for myself, so I didn't push a tool, I was making

sure I was comfortable, I knew all the processes, knew where all the buttons were, and I just took

that time for me to adjust myself, which is what I needed really, and then first session,

you know, was getting faster and faster every single lap, and then it was the last two sessions

where I was really able to push, you know, there was some time in the high-speed stuff,

but honestly, my minimum speeds in every other corner, like there were two corners on the circuit

where I lost more time than what I would like to, but the rest of the circuit I was matching,

matching others, so I'm very happy, but I was always expecting to maybe not be quite so confident

around the high-speed corners because I haven't done F2 and F3, but yeah, even through the fast

corners I was close, so honestly, I'm really happy with my performance today, and I want to go again.

I can imagine, I can imagine.

Okay, so take us into the journey to get to this point. I mean, your dad's here, I've seen your

dad, he's got the biggest smile on his face, you know, there's so many people aren't there that come

with you in periods and moments like this, so how great is it to have someone like him here,

but I imagine there's other people in your life as well that have been important to get to this point.

I've had so many people help me along the way. It's not been an easy road. There's been,

I've spent many years not racing due to lack of budget. Just the effort to even get on the grid

is difficult. It's not easy bringing sponsors on board, and it's not easy finding, you know,

right fits and everything like that. I've got the drives, just need to find a way to fund it, but yeah.

As much as I would have liked to have been racing more, and I'd like to be racing more now,

I genuinely, what's led to this, everything that's happened in my career has led to this moment,

and if that means I've missed out on some years of racing, then so be it. If it's led to this,

it's led to this. I've been in, you know, the right places sometimes, I've been in the wrong

places sometimes. It's been a roller coaster, but I wouldn't change a thing because I think it's

made me the driver that I am today. I often, you know, if a drive becomes available at minimal cost,

or I have found a sponsor for a season or W series, for instance. I've never had any testing or

anything really, so I've had to adapt to things fast, and I think that's come into fruition today,

and it's made me the driver I am. So every, if I think back to the whole process,

everything has happened for a reason, but yeah, frustrating at the time because I'd

like to have been racing more, but everything happens for a reason, I'm sure of that,

and it's led to where I am today, although I'm not finished yet.

I want to talk more about what today means in terms of motorsport, and yourself being a female,

and getting behind a Formula One wheel today. So Susie Wolff did it in 2012 and 2014, Tatiana

Corduran in 2018, but this is depressingly low in terms of the amount of women that have got

behind the wheel of a Formula One car. We haven't had a woman start a Grand Prix since Leila Lombardi

in Austria in 1976. This is not good enough, is it, for the sport, but have you sort of let yourself

think about that, and just how significant today is because it's a handful of women

that have managed to do what you've done? I guess I haven't really, it will probably hit me within

the next few days how, you know, monumental this is, and what a milestone it is in not only my

career, but just in motorsport, but I often get asked why there are no women in Formula One,

and honestly, there's probably a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons is a numbers game.

Honestly, I think that if you, I don't know the real numbers, but if 5,000 kids start

carting across the world every year, start carting, but if only 10 of them are women,

and people drop out along the way, you know, people up the ladder, people drop out because,

for many reasons, they've run out of budget, or they're not good enough, or they find other

interests, or they're not passionate about it, they're not driven enough to keep going.

So of course, by law of averages, if we're only starting with 10 women compared to 5,000 men,

of course we're not going to see a woman at the pinnacle of motorsport racing in Formula One,

but what I think this will do is give visibility to the younger generation that this is, you know,

we deserve a space here, and we can do, we are capable, and if your dream is to stereotypically

the other gender, so, you know, I'm not just passionate about women in motorsport,

I'm passionate about people being happy and following their dream, whether that stereotypically

that dream is the other gender's normality. Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. I mean,

yeah, it's, I think it's a hugely significant day for the sport, and obviously we hope it's,

you know, much, much sooner, and it's not another five years, Tatiana Calderon did it,

but as we hope it's not another five years for another, for another woman to get behind the

wheel of a Formula One car. I want to talk about your career as well, because you've had a,

interesting career when I was doing a bit of research for this, I was reading, you were a

pretty good footballer when you were younger, I don't know how true that is. Take me back to

why you chose motorsport, what were the options on the table? Were you one of those very annoying

kids who were just good at everything, good at all the sports? I was good at a lot of sports,

I was never particularly academic, but I did excel at sports, but yeah, I played football for a,

I played lots of sports to be honest, but football was my main love at the time,

I played for Reading, but one day I went to play golf with my dad,

and my parents were separated from since I can remember, so I used to go and spend every other

weekend with my dad, and we used to go and play different sports, and this one particular weekend

we were playing golf, it was, I think it may have been, we only went a few times, but in the distance

was a cart circuit, didn't really know what I was looking at, but it looked cool, so I asked him,

take me over there, take me over there, you know, and begrudgingly he did,

and luckily for him at the time I was too small, the height restriction was quite high and I was

quite small, but it planted the seed, it planted the seed for sure, and maybe we went back a couple

of months later or we got a phone call saying the height restriction had been lowered, went back

and had my first go and completely fell in love with it, there's all I could think about,

all I could dream about and won the championship in the first year, and then I guess just followed

the natural progression and lots of advice off of other people, because we didn't really know

what we were doing, and I was completely oblivious to any outside thing, because I was just a kid

that enjoyed driving around in circles fast, and yeah, here we are 20 years later, and I'm driving

a Formula One car, I don't think me or my dad or my mum ever expected it to become what it has

become, and you know, I'm making a career in motorsport, and I don't know what I'd do without it,

I'd be lost without it, I think back now, and I'm like, what would I have done, and I'd,

honest answer is I've got no idea, probably play football or something, I don't know if I was

any good. Could be, you know, lead scorer for Reading right now, the WSL. Maybe, I was probably not

that good. Loads of enthusiasm, but not much talent, maybe. I guess motorsport is unique,

isn't it, in the sense of it's hard to practice motorsport, unless you're on track, and obviously,

you know, thinking with football, you can just go down the park, obviously this is not elite

football, not an elite level, but you can just go down the park, and you know, you could practice

your free kicks until it goes dark. With motorsport, you need to get on track, you need to get into a

go-kart, you need to have a lot of money to even get to that point. I mean, how difficult is motorsport

to get better at, you know, how is that process? Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, it's very difficult. I was,

as I said, I spent a lot of time not racing, not testing as much as what I would have liked to have

been, and even as Matt, as you said, with football, you know, not that it's as simple as this, but

you know, going by a ten pound football, and you can... It's accessible, at least it's accessible.

Accessible is probably the right word, yeah, this is far less accessible, it's very expensive,

it's very unique, and specialist, I guess, so yeah, to get the practice in, but this is where

simulators come in, so I spent a lot of my time on simulators, because I lacked track time, did a

lot of sim work, which again, you know, good simulators are expensive, so it's still not

quite as accessible, but yeah, sadly, I fell in love with this sport, and do you know what,

I sit here now, and I think still 20 years later, I love it as much as what I did 20 years ago,

and I'm like, I wish one day I'd just wake up and not love it as much, because then I wouldn't be,

then I wouldn't be on this roller coaster all the time, if I'm racing and then I'm not, and then

I'm racing and then I'm not, but yes, I sadly am still as in love with it as what I was 20 years

ago. Sport chose you, you can't afflict, if the sport chose you, you can't do anything about it,

so how did the opportunity at Aston come about? A friend of mine that was working at Aston Martin,

when it first became Aston Martin, and he phoned me and he said, you know, we may have this role

available, would you be interested if it became available? And I said yes, of course I would be,

like, are you kidding me? Of course, I can't believe you even need to ask, and I didn't hear

anything for six months, so I had a long way about hearing nothing, I thought maybe, you know,

I don't know, got lost along the way or something, and then randomly I had another phone call about

six months later saying, right, it's looking like it's happening, your contract will be with you,

and then, you know, the next week or so, and it was a long process, but then all of a sudden it

happened very quickly, and it very much started as a promotional role, lots of work with the sponsors,

quickly turned into hot laps, simulator work, which was obviously very welcomed, and since then

it's just grown and grown and grown, and here I am driving a Formula One car. What does a day in

the life of a Formula One ambassador like you do for Aston look like? When you're at a racetrack,

what the sort of things you're doing? Well, with the racetrack, I sit in on the briefings,

the debriefings, listen in, hot laps as well, sometimes hot laps are not at every circuit, but

take the sponsors out or guests of ours on hot laps, which unsurprisingly is my favourite part

of the weekend, media dinners, lots of appearances, things like that, it's a great weekend, because

I'm very involved in the racing, I feel as much as part of the team as anybody else, and yeah,

thoroughly enjoy myself. And I guess you've sort of had two of the most incredible people to work

with in that role, right? There's Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Talk about two people who

could just help you and give you advice, and I mean, what have you picked up from the likes of

Seb and Fernando? Well, firstly, yes, okay, they are incredible, but also I get to work with Pedro,

with Lance, with Stoffel and Felipe, so I'm able to pick up, and each driver works in slightly

different ways, they have different processes, slightly different driving techniques, so yes,

whilst okay, I haven't been able to directly compare, because whilst I was racing in the W

series, they were racing Formula One, I haven't been able to like directly compare their data,

because they're very different cars. I have been able to pick up processes, things they look for,

how they work with their engineer, different ways of communication, all different various

ways that I've got. I've had the luxury of being able to work with those people,

and pick up as much as I can, so I've been in a very fortunate position there.

Give me some examples if you can. Example. Something maybe that you've picked up from

Fernando or any of the other drivers, but yeah, you've gone, oh actually, yeah, I like the way

you did that, or like, you know. Honestly, it's all things that they think about whilst they're on

circuit, and being clever, and thinking outside the box sometimes. Oh, you've put them in the spot

there now. Is this like Fernando in Baku, talking to telling Lance, because you saw him on the big

screen around the circuit, giving him advice about how to like tackle a corner, do you remember that?

Yes, I remember that. I mean, how drivers have the ability to do that?

I know, I know. And also drive the Formula One car, I don't know.

Their brain capacity, I guess, is huge, but he's been doing it a long time and he's very experienced

Disney, so yeah, lots of, you know, what he does, I feel like when you've driven a Formula One car,

or any car for that amount of time, you've got so much other space in your brain for other things.

Yeah, but being able to, I remember myself racing, looking on the big screen, where is

everyone else? Do I have, how much of a gap do I have, and things like that, and where are they,

and trying to work out championship points, and all that kind of stuff, so yeah, it's processes,

and things like that. Yeah, yeah. I guess Fernando as well, he's experienced in so many other

different categories as well, hasn't he, that I guess he brings a lot of, he brings a wealth of

experience to the team, not just in Formula One, but in other processes. Absolutely, he's been

incredible so serve and so's Lance. Yeah, okay, let's talk about another part of your career,

and that stunt driving, which I think is one of the most exciting parts of your career.

I think I know what the job of a stunt driver is, but you tell me what a stunt driver actually does.

We do dangerous stuff, controlled dangerous things, I guess is maybe a good way to explain it,

mapped out dangerous stuff, jumping cars, crashing, organized crashes.

Organized crashes, yeah. Sequences as well, I guess the stunt driving is,

it's difficult, I'd say it's the same set of skills, just used in a completely different way.

Obviously when I'm racing, I'm competing against everybody that I'm driving with, whereas the

stunt driving, everybody's working together to achieve the perfect shot. Yeah, very, very different

and not something that I ever saw myself going into. Do you enjoy it? I love it, I love it. I mean,

it's difficult to fit in with the Formula One calendar, but that really really came about one

time when, so I was leading the championship that I was in at the time, but I didn't have the budget

to continue the rest of the season, so I had the budget for the first three races, which I won

all three of them actually, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to finish the season,

and a job opportunity came about and I applied for it, and in fact, I didn't even know what the

job was, it just said we're looking for a female with good car control, and I saw it advertised

and I thought, sounds like me, sounds like it could be up my street, and then I

applied and they said, you need to be at a drift donor, this that and the other, and I thought,

God, I've not done any of that stuff. Did you practice in the car park at home?

I didn't, no, I've valid my driving license too much,

but I, because obviously in racing, as soon as you go sideways, you're slow,

so I hadn't had the opportunity to do any of that really, but nevertheless, I got an audition.

He's just revving up. Yeah, I got an audition, and the only place that I could find to teach

me how to drift and donut and stuff was a place called Island, like a day or two before my audition,

and they basically taught me how to do a basic donut, small drifts, and things like that,

like I was very unprepared of Jeter and things like that, and stopping the right place, and then

I went to my audition the next day, and basically what happened was they wanted a team of 11 drivers,

they'd found the men that they were happy with, but they were still looking for a female,

and that's how the job came about, because it was very much in the drifting world,

like the stunt world that they were advertising to, but when they were still looking for a female,

that's when they put it out a bit further. Yeah, I went to my audition the next day,

and there was lots of females turn up, they'd come from all around the world, I guess, and

I probably started as one of the worst, because I was, I guess, against people that do it day in,

day out, but my rate of progression was really strong, and I made it through to the second day,

which was, I think, a week or two later or something, and then after the second day I got the job,

and honestly I think it was my rate of progression that got me the job, and spent two or three months,

my nine-to-five job was drifting and crashing and jay-turning and doing all those cool stuff,

so yeah, I had the perfect training ground really, you couldn't pay for that experience, and

so then I went off and did that, and at the time, sorry, going back, it's really long, I'm sorry.

No, no, it's good, it's good. I was leading the championship I was in, so I've got this job offer,

I was leading the championship I was in, and everybody around me, close to me, was saying to me,

Jess, don't take this job, because you're just about to crack the racing, you're just, you know,

you're leading the championship, and we'll get the budget, but from experience I knew how difficult

it was to bring the budget in, you know, regardless of leading the championship, it's still difficult,

so, but there's something inside of me was telling me, take this job, take this job,

so I took it, I said, I'm going to do it, and I went off and I did it, and it was one of the

most incredible experiences I've ever done. As it happened, I was able to finish the championship as

well, but then the season after I wasn't able to race, I couldn't bring the budget in, despite the

great championship that I'd had, and then I went sun-driving for a good few years,

one of the most amazing experiences I ever did, and then it was only W Series that allowed me

to go racing again, that's the only reason I'm back, I guess, is because of W Series.

I think that's a really interesting example of the kind of challenges and decisions you

have to make as a young driver today, isn't it? I mean, you're literally having to choose between

racing, which I guess is the purest form of motorsport, and I'm sure the part of motorsport

that you would most love to be successful in, but you've got to make a living, you've got to earn

money, you know? Yeah, I had bills and things like that, and as much as I never, I didn't,

and don't get me wrong, I still had the opportunity to do the odd race here and there,

which I was able to do, but I found it impossible to bring the budget on, but had I

have been able to bring the budget on, I probably would have had a very, very difficult decision

to make then, but as it happened, all worked out, and this goes back to everything happens for a

reason, Matt, and I don't regret any decision that I make because I've had a ball along the way

as well, and as I said earlier, I may not be exactly where I want to be, but I'm exceptionally

proud of where I've come and my journey, but yeah, keep pushing, keep pushing.

One other thing to add to that, I've got down here that you're a Guinness World Record holder,

so you've got the 0-100 mile an hour lawnmower record in

6.29 seconds.

Is it? Yeah, that sounds right.

Yeah, that sounds right.

How nuts is that?

Yeah, that's mad, really, isn't it? I always get the weird and wonderful vocal, is it?

Yeah, that's so, I mean, how on earth did that come about?

It was actually a British touring car team that approached me and said,

you just phoned me out the blue, and he said, bear in mind, this is the British touring car team

that I've been wanting to race for, that I had been wanting to race for for so many years since I

was little, and I finally get a phone call off the team manager and he said, I've got this

opportunity for you, but I can't tell you what it is until you sign the NDA, so I thought,

oh my god, he's gonna for me a drive, for free, like why else would he be calling me?

Yeah, as it happens, it wasn't, it was to be the pilot for their world record attempt,

but yeah, it was another incredible experience, but yeah, officially,

world record hold of the fastest lawn mower, 0 to 100 miles an hour, and unofficially,

fastest lawn mower in the world, and it's only unofficial because when you go for a world record

attempt, like they involve speed and things like that, you have to have, I think it's five or six

different ways of proving that you've done that speed, and one of them broke, so like we've got it

on camera, we've got all the evidence, we've got GPS, we've got everything, so I think it was 158

miles an hour or something, wow, oh my goodness, I won't lie, it really feels quite fast, quite

scary in a lawn mower, yeah, I strapped in I guess, no, never again Matt, never again, well

look, maybe we'll have to get that back on Sky Sports F1 and get the official record,

again for the top speed of a lawn mower, I think that'd be amazing, we've done Kimmy lawn mower

racing, yeah, we did do that, that was I think for Silverstone, yeah, we got him in a field and

he was racing with these lawn mowers, I wonder what else, tractor or something, yeah, yeah, anyway,

anyway, so sort of final thing I want to talk to you about really is, it's obviously, we touched

on it earlier and it was with regards to, you know, getting more women in the sport and I'm

intrigued to get your thoughts, now we've got one more round left of the F1 Academy in Austin,

so where do you sit in terms of how successful it's been this year and obviously looking

head to next year, we know obviously they're going to be at Formula One races next year,

that was obviously only going to be a good thing, but do you think there's more needs to be done

or are you happy with the progress that's being made by F1? Well look, we're a lot

further forward than what we were and I'm happy for any steps that we take, we just need to

keep pushing if I'm honest, I think I probably speak, I mean I don't want to speak for everyone,

but certainly my generation, we don't, and I put this in, how do I say this in the right way,

so I believe we can race against the guys, but if what it takes to inspire more and get us

further along the journey in mode sport, if we need a championship that's females racing females,

then so be it, if that's what we need to increase profile and increase visibility, I think it's

absolutely fantastic and I'm a massive, massive supporter of it and I think it's been incredible

this year actually, bigger and better next year on Formula One and I also think obviously we've

got a lot to thank W Series for on that front, they were I guess the leaders behind it, but yeah,

F1 Academy has been incredible this year and long may it continue to prepare more women for the

journey ahead of them, I think it's fantastic. Because that's what it's intended to do as I

understand it, is get women ready to be able to compete for seats in F3, which will then put you

on a pathway to get to F2 and then obviously F1, because at the moment I guess there's not enough

women being given the opportunities in F3. Of course, and I for sure think that F1 Academy

is going to prepare more women to be ready for those opportunities should they arise,

and I think it's great, I'm a massive, massive advocate of it and I think it's fantastic

and I'll never, ever, ever hear a bad word said about either championships, W Series or F1 Academy.

So you've all said back in April, she thinks it's about eight to ten years before we get a

female racing driver in Formula One, can see you nodding your head, do you think that's about the

right timescale? Probably, I think maybe a year or two sooner than that maybe, but realistically

for sure I don't think it's going to be within the next two or three years unfortunately,

which it hurts me to say it, but being honest I think that that's probably right.

I think that we've previously had females that are good enough, we've had females that have had

the backing behind them, but have we had a female that's had the full package? I'm not sure, but I

think what this F1 Academy will do is create the opportunity for a female with every single piece of

the puzzle that is needed, create more opportunity to find that. Just finally then, for your own

career, today's obviously been massive, I think you've said it's the best day of your life,

best day of your dad's life as well, what does this mean for you going forward,

having just tested a Formula One car today, what are we going to see from Jess Hawkins in the future?

Who knows, I'd like to think that this is not the only opportunity that I'm going to get,

there are other opportunities, perhaps shows or demos or a sponsor event or I don't know,

I'd like another test of course, and I'll push as hard as I can for that.

I want to go racing Matt, I'm not racing as much as I'd like, I am racing this year actually in a

championship Prager cars, with the University of Wolverhampton, so everybody working on the

cars is a student, it's really great to be involved in that, this is fresh off the back

of a win actually, we won a few weeks ago, both me and my teammate, he won his race, I won my race,

but yeah, it's great to be involved in that, but I don't just want to race that, I want to race

and ask the Martin GT3, that's my goal, that's what I'm trying to find the budget for,

and that's what I'll continue to do, but my career is not over yet, but many years left

to me, I'm still as passionate and I won't give up until I'm racing what I want to be racing,

but yeah, it's great to be involved with the University and great to help nurture and help

that generation as well, because they're the students and I guess the kids that we're going

to see working in Formula One one day. Yeah, that's a really interesting point actually,

because yeah, we are seeing certainly in the paddock, there's such a better diversity of people,

isn't there, within the paddock, and obviously Lewis has been incredibly vocal on that, but

I think we are starting to see, and we're not just talking about drivers here, we're talking

about people behind the scenes and mechanics and engineers and everyone in the sport, it's good

to see, isn't it? The amount of women in our garage today, incredible, and certainly from when I

first started, there are so many more women, so yes, we're making steps in the right direction,

but we need to keep pushing, because we're not quite there yet, you know, the ratio is still

favoured to male, but yeah, look, we're so much further forward than what we were, we just need

to keep pushing, and I'm proud to be one of the, I guess, leading women of my generation that are

pushing forward for that change. Amazing. Jess, thank you so much for joining us, can't wait to

see what's next for you. Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.