Drawing on the success of the first such event in 2012, the Seminar is a unique opportunity providing National Sporting Authorities (ASNs), their Women in Motorsport representatives and international motorsport experts with the opportunity to network, debate and discuss the challenges affecting women entering the sport at all levels and in all areas. 

This year’s theme ‘Making a Difference’ is aimed at further defining strategies and understanding the perception of career opportunities on a national and regional basis, helping to identify how all the sport’s stakeholders can work together and further encourage development, realise social responsibility education programmes, and assist the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission in setting its goals and missions for the coming four years.

Nearly 80 delegates from 43 different National Sporting Authorities around the world will participate, joining FIA Deputy President for Sport Graham Stoker, FIA Secretary General for Sport Jean-Louis Valentin, as well as Michèle Mouton, President of the Women in Motorsport Commission and Carlos Barbosa, President of the hosting club. The FIA is also pleased to welcome João Paulo Rebelo, the Portuguese Secretary of State for Sport, for a unique insight into work at government level.

“Our first Seminar provided the opportunity for the women in motorsport community to meet, understand, learn about programmes that had been developed in various countries and network on the key challenges,” commented Michèle Mouton. “From that, collectively we were able to define a list of recommendations for the ASNs to work towards to provide initial platforms for communication and development. Those recommendations still stand and have been implemented in many countries around the world. Now we must build on that while at the same time recognising and understanding the many different social and cultural issues we all face. I’m really looking forward to the meeting of minds, some enthusiastic and thought-provoking discussion and learning more about how we can all make a difference.”

Representing drivers, Jutta Kleinschmidt and Cathy Muller will be discussing the Commission’s ‘detection cell’ for spotting young up-and-coming talent, while key note speaker Nathalie McGloin - who became the first-ever female spinal injured driver to be granted a race licence in the UK - will be discussing the impact the Paralympics has made on sport and her determination to continue racing, despite being a tetraplegic driver paralysed from the chest downwards. 

Formula One Steward and FIA Women in Motorsport Ambassador Sylvia Bellot will be campaigning the value of motorsport officials and volunteers and how they can be attracted and retained, and Le Mans winning engineer and another of the Commission’s Ambassadors, Leena Gade, will be leading the discussion on attracting more female engineers into the sport. The ASN representatives will be sharing best practices from their own countries, as well as joining forces in regional discussions specific to their parts of the world. 

The second day is focused on workshops, the first being led by the UK-based team from WISE, whose mission is to get one million more women in the UK STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) workforce. In particular, their revolutionary ‘People like Me’ project, based on personality traits and aptitudes, will engage all the Seminar delegates in an interactive session demonstrating how young girls are happy and successful working in STEM.

At the end of the two-day Seminar, delegates will present the outcomes from all the workshops, which will form the basis of a visual ‘chart for the future’ to be implemented by the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission and its global stakeholders over the next four years.