Mann would like to see IndyCar do more to help young female drivers climb the ranksGETTY IMAGES
There is not a female on the Indianapolis 500 starting grid “for the first time since 2000,” and last weekend’s qualifying “marked the first time a woman didn’t attempt to enter the race” since ’91, according to Nathan Brown of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. This marks “yet another question mark for the series’ present and future.” The series earlier this summer “announced a new $1 million diversity initiative -- Race for Equality and Change,” but driver Pippa Mann “has her doubts” if that will help the cause. Mann, who has raced in the Indy 500 seven times, said, "If they're serious about it, and it's not just a show piece, it actually needs to step up and do it's job. … It should be about making sure someone young managed to do a full season in the Road to Indy program." Mann earlier this week on Twitter indicated that she believes IndyCar “hasn't reached out to any young drivers who are women to aid in their attempt to make their way up the ladder.” She sees a main cause for the lack of female drivers being the “lack of able corporate sponsors willing, outside a pandemic landscape, to live up to their own diversity pledges in terms of where they spend their money” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 8/18).
