With motorsport a male dominated discipline, the FIA has stepped out to offer females yet another chance to drive their way to becoming world champions.
The FIA is set to introduce the Rally Star program that will attract young males and females into competitive driving.
The five-step program will have a mass detection of talent from FIA’s 144 national sporting associations.
Digital Motorsport; the designers of driving simulators and the FIA Rally Star partner video game along with Motorkhana, will be the basis for evaluation for this operation.
Budding drivers will have to qualify from their respect countries after a series of detection methods at the national level.
However, female drivers will go through a special criteria as FIA wants to use the rallystar programme to further promote women in motorsport.
“Rally star programme will promote women in motorsport. There will be specific selection criteria for women in Step 1 of the program (mass detection) and a dedicated selection path for them in the following steps,” Jerome Roussel, FIA rally Star project leader.
After the final step of the programme, only four most promising drivers, including at least one female competitor will then join the FIA Junior WRC.
Roussel further explained the motives behind the programme.
“We want to create future champions, but we also want to encourage drivers at all levels to practice motorsport in regions around the world, not just in Europe.
“There are drivers in all regions with potential, but they dont know where to start,” he added.
Although the programme will be fully funded by the FIA Innovation Fund(FIF), a small charge will be incurred by the drivers .
The FIA Rally Star programme will officially be launched in June.