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Susie Wolff thinks it is possible that a woman will be back on the Formula One grid within the next 10 years.
F1 hasn't had a female driver since 1992 when Giovanna Amati failed to qualify for three events for Brabham. But Wolff, who ran in four free practice sessions for Williams between 2014-2015 thinks that a female can be back on the grid by 2026.
"It's too difficult to put a timescale on it but I would hope that within the next 10 years we'll see a female driver on the grid of an F1 race," she told the BBC. "Society is ready for the change. It's never going to be something that happens overnight, it's going to be a long-term project. There are successful women in the paddock and in front of television cameras who are helping that wave of change. They are there are because they are the best at the job."
Since retiring from competitive motorsport at the end of last year, former-DTM racer Wolff has been working alongside the Motorsport Association in the UK on Dare To Be Different, an initiative aimed at encouraging more women to get involved with motorsport.
"There are only 22 seats on the starting grid and you've got every young driver dreaming of F1," she said. "If you have 1,000 little boys racing between the ages of eight and 10 and only 10-20 girls, it's clear it's going to be very difficult for even one of them to make it all the way to the top."
"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," she added. "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."
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