In 2010, 2011 and 2013, there have been at least four female drivers on the Indianapolis 500 grid.
Although up to three are possible for 2014, there’s a very distinct chance none of them will be in a full-time IndyCar driving role.
Simona de Silvestro’s decision to pursue Formula One, as a Sauber-affiliated driver, removes the only full-time female driver from the IndyCar grid.
Danica Patrick is the most famous female departure from IndyCar, when she left for NASCAR at the end of 2011.
But all of Katherine Legge, Pippa Mann and Ana Beatriz have made multiple ‘500 starts in the last few years, and none seems projected for a full-time ride at this juncture.
Sarah Fisher, a record nine-time ‘500 starter, is still active as a team co-owner with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, but has no plans to return to the driver’s seat.
Mann continues to work towards a partial season effort; meanwhile Legge, who races the DeltaWing coupe in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, no doubt could benefit from another IndyCar chance after being unceremoniously dumped by Dragon Racing on the eve of the 2013 season.
Beatriz, who I spoke to at the Rolex 24 at Daytona as she hoped to land a ride there (she didn’t after testing with the Starworks Motorsport PC class team), has said finding finances in Brazil is harder than ever. The four-time Indianapolis 500 starter raced seven events for Dale Coyne Racing in 2013, but the likeable “Bia” didn’t appear to have any IndyCar prospects in the pipeline.
Freiberg has past open-wheel experience in both the Pro Mazda and Skip Barber Race Series, the latter of which she has an overall championship.
Even in NASCAR, Johanna Long has had to work harder to find sponsorship after the small ML Motorsports team shut its doors this offseason.
This all poses an intriguing shift from even a few years ago.
Whereby female drivers have, in the past, been able to garner opportunities by the pure fact they are female, and some initiatives have been created to help (namely TrueCar’s “Women Empowered” one in 2012), it now seems the game is nearly as hard for female drivers to find sponsorship to race as it is for males.
In some respects, that’s a good thing. We might not be there yet, but we might be closer to judging all drivers on ability level rather than picking and choosing based on gender, and the potential sponsorship package they bring.
Part of why de Silvestro was liked in IndyCar was because she was seen by some as the “anti-Danica.” They raced in the same series for two years and de Silvestro’s management team crafted her as a racing driver who happened to be female. But they found sponsorship for her just as well.
There will always be female drivers who push the “female” angle first, but ultimately, they’re all drivers first, and they’re all having to work just as hard to keep their racing dreams alive.
For the fifth time in 10 rounds of the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross season, the three riders at the top of the championship standings shared a podium and while those points tell one story, the NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit tell a slightly different tale.Cooper Webb is peaking at the right time. – Feld Motor Sports
Chase Sexton has been all but perfect during the past 45 days with podium finishes in each of his heats and Triple Crown features. His only stumble during this period was a 10th-place finish in the Indianapolis Main. Last week, Sexton was perfect with wins in both his heat and the feature, although he needed a little help from an Aaron Plessinger mistake to take the top spot on the podium at the end of the night.
Cooper Webb finished fifth at Houston and was beginning to worry ever so slightly about his position in the points. Prior to the race in Tampa, he told NBC Sports that it was time to win and like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield fence, Webb went out and captured it. Following that race, Webb has swept the podium and earned the red plate two weeks ago in Indianapolis. At Detroit, he added two more points on Eli Tomac as the season begins to wind down.
Tomac struggled with a stiff neck at Indianapolis and after a modest third-place showing in Detroit, he revealed he was still suffering a little. Webb and Sexton have been able to close the gap on Tomac in the past 45 days, but one of the main reasons he is so close in the points was a pair of wins that started the year. Seattle is going to be important for the defending champion because Tomac cannot afford to lose any more momentum with seven rounds remaining.
It appeared Jason Anderson was turning things around. He earned his fifth heat win at Detroit, which was also his sixth consecutive race (including features) in which he scored a top-five. A fall in the Detroit Main dropped him a lap off the pace and sent him home with a season-worst finish of ninth, causing a ripple effect in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings.
Justin Barcia was a huge part of the show last week in Detroit. He swapped positions with both Webb and Tomac in the middle stage of the race, which allowed Sexton to close the gap. Barcia finished fourth in that race to earn his third consecutive top-five. He’s been outside the top 10 only once in the first 10 rounds.
Adam Cianciarulo had a great start to the Main. He led a couple of laps before losing a lap and slipping back to eighth in the final rundown. That run was strong enough to elevate him three positions in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit.
The NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings look at the past 90 days in the 250 class in order to have a balanced comparison between the East and West divisions and Hunter Lawrence has been all but perfect this year. At Detroit, he earned his fifth win of the season and kept alive a streak of podium finishes in six rounds. He tied his brother Jett Lawrence with 10 250 wins one week before the West riders take to the track for back-to-back races at Seattle, Washington and Glendale, Arizona.
Nate Thrasher is settling into a comfortable role as ‘best in class’. – Feld Motor Sports
The Lawrence brothers are dominating the points in each of their respective divisions, which means the remainder of the field is battling to be best in class.
In the East, that rider is Nate Thrasher, who beat Hunter in a head-to-head matchup in their heat only to finish second in the main when the majority of points were awarded. Thrasher seems to have accepted his position in the championship standings, but that doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying for wins.
Haiden Deegan showed a lot of aggression in his heat last week. He threw a couple of block passes at his teammate Jordon Smith and set up a series of events that kept Smith from making the big show while Deegan settled into second in the preliminary. Deegan was unconcerned about how he raced his teammate and would not let a little controversy keep him from celebrating his second career podium in Detroit.
Jeremy Martin just keeps clicking off solid results. He won his heat last week by making a pass on Deegan and Smith while they were in the heat of their battle. Martin finished fourth in the Main, which means he continues to have only one finish worse than sixth in any of the features or mains.
Smith fell one position in the points standings, but the damage was even worse in SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit. Crash damage in his heat contributed to a last-place finish in that race, for which he earned minimal points. He was not able to advance from the Last Chance Qualifier after stalling his bike in heavy traffic.
250 Rankings
This
Week
Rider
Power
Avg.
Last
Week
Diff.
1.
Hunter Lawrence – E
[5 Main, 5 Heat wins]
90.43
1
0
2.
Jett Lawrence – W
[3 Main, 3 Heat wins]
90.30
2
0
3.
Nate Thrasher – E
[1 Main, 3 Heat wins]
84.00
5
2
4.
Cameron McAdoo – W
[1 Heat win]
79.80
9
5
5.
Haiden Deegan – E
[1 Heat win]
78.21
7
2
6.
Jeremy Martin – E
[2 Heat wins]
78.00
8
2
7.
Jordon Smith – E
[3 Heat Wins]
76.77
4
-3
8.
Levi Kitchen – W
[1 Main]
75.30
3
-5
9.
Mitchell Oldenburg – W
75.20
11
2
10.
RJ Hampshire – W
[4 Heat wins]
74.50
17
7
11.
Max Anstie – E
74.43
6
-5
12.
Tom Vialle – E
72.07
12
0
13.
Max Vohland – W
71.56
10
-3
14.
Stilez Robertson – W
[1 Heat win]
69.22
14
0
15.
Chris Blose – E
67.43
18
3
16.
Chance Hymas – E
67.10
15
-1
17.
Enzo Lopes – W
66.00
20
3
18.
Michael Mosiman – E
65.80
16
-2
19.
Pierce Brown – W
65.78
13
-6
20.
Phil Nicoletti – W
59.25
21
1
* The NBC Power Rankings assign 100 points to a Main event winner and 90 points for each Heat and Triple Crown win, (Triple Crown wins are included with heat wins below the rider’s name). The points decrement by a percentage equal to the number of riders in the field until the last place rider in each event receives five points. The Power Ranking is the average of these percentage points over the past 45 days for the 450 class and last 90 days for 250s (because of the split nature of their season).
