Extreme E star Catie Munnings on work with Susie Wolff to get girls into racing
Getting more women involved in high-level motorsport is an ever-growing topic of conversation – and something Catie Munnings has been working to achieve both on and off the track.
An extremely talented child growing up in the south of England, she performed well academically, danced at a high level and competed nationally in athletics. Her ambition was to become a vet and, as her A-levels approached, she was considering her university options.
But Munnings had already been bitten by the motorsport bug. She had already begun off-road racing locally in her early teens and her passion for it – combined with a little luck – led to her turning down university places to pursue her passion for rallying.
"I was so competitive and if I wasn't particularly talented at something, I was just too competitive to not work hard," she tells Mirror Sport. "Even playing cards with my sister or something, I'm a really bad loser!"
Her first big opportunity came somewhat out of the blue. "I was spectating at a European Rally Championship event and got speaking to some of the organisers, and they were looking for amateurs and females for a Peugeot test. So right place and right time for me, I guess.
Greggs, Costa & Pret coffees have 'huge differences in caffeine', says report
"I was able to go and work with the French team over there – and I'd never driven a rally car before! Or left-hand drive. I was just 17 so it was all very out of my depth, and suddenly in this car which was running in the Junior World Rally Championship.
"I just remember sitting there next to the French champion and seeing what he did behind the wheel and I remember thinking that we were constantly going to crash, at every corner. But his control and the level of speed that he could carry through a corner, felt so much more within the car compared to what it would look like on the outside. I remember thinking, 'Right now I definitely can't do that, but I want to know if I can do that'.
Munnings began rallying in Europe as a teenager (Red Bull Content Pool)"So it was me being quite inquisitive and wanting to see how far I could take my talent. It was a pure hunger to learn and see if one day I could drive like that, and I've had that ever since."
In 2016, while still a teenager, Munnings won the European Rally Championship Ladies' Trophy. She continued to race in the ERC3 category for the next few years until, in early 2020, an incredible opportunity came along.
In February 2020, she was invited to compete in the World Rally Championship. She says: "I had a week's notice and scraped around a bit of a budget, but didn't have enough. I definitely didn't have enough to crash and that was in the back of my mind. And that really does affect your performance as a driver because you're always on the side of caution, while those who have a willing mentality are all out or nothing.
"There wasn't really any snow and you're running on snow tyres as well – and on the first stage I had a double puncture which was so unlucky. I think I dropped 10 minutes and that was it really, that was my rally – no coming back from that.
Munning made her WRC debut in Sweden in 2020 as Covid began to take a grip on the world (Red Bull Content Pool)"But it was an amazing experience for me as it was the first time I had done a world level event. That was the year of Covid so all of those plans folded as well. It was all so uncertain, and then I got the call from America for Extreme E, and that was the switchover period – I just went straight into that."
Extreme E, a relatively new off-road racing series, sees teams each field one male and one female driver in electric SUVs. The wider aim is to use motorsport as a platform to raise awareness of climate change and highlight good projects working to protect Earth, but Munnings feels it has also done wonders for racers like her who have been taking part.
"The biggest thing for me, even when I was rallying – they have ladies categories and all that, but I never wanted to aspire to that. I always wanted to look at the fastest drivers on track and, ultimately, they were men because there were more men with more experience in those categories than the females who were coming up the ranks.
"That was always my focus and, when I came to a platform like Extreme E, suddenly the talent is up here! You've got some of the best drivers in the world from lots of different disciplines and the fact that we were able to have as much access to testing, the engineers – every performance element that you would think is part and parcel of being in motorsport, but often isn't... to have that across the board, the talent and level of the females has jumped.
Costa Coffee cappuccino has four times the amount of caffeine as a Red Bull
"We can compare data with our team-mates and nothing is hidden because it's a team result and we both want the other to be fast. I learned very quickly from Timmy [Hansen] and basically moved over to Sweden for a few months, lived with him and probably really annoyed him! It's such a massive motorsport family and to be able to learn from them and do a few rally course races with them, it was a time in my life when I really propelled myself in terms of driving experience."
She is living her dream in motorsport and wants other young girls and women to be able to follow. That's why she has worked with former Williams reserve driver and newly-appointed F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff on the Dare to be Different initiative.
"I was probably one of the first people to be involved in that, back before it was called Girls on Track. Susie was really hands on, she's fantastic. I would go to events with her and she would sit down with me and talk about where I was at in my career. She would even phone me up from her home in Switzerland on a Friday night to see how my races were going!
"She actually really cares, and that's the really cool thing about it. She's created this platform for women from all backgrounds – a reporter; a mechanic; an engineer; drivers. We'd get a group of girls together and have pit stops set up where they could change tyres, go kart tracks, cameras to stand in front of and speak. Trying out all these different experiences.
Susie Wolff is the new managing director of the all-female F1 Academy series (Getty Images)"At the beginning of the day you'd say, 'Put your hand up if you want to be a Formula 1 driver' and everyone would say they thought only men can do it because every time they watch the TV, there's only men on the grid. If we want the change to filter through to the top then we have to be getting them in at grassroots.
"Not every guy that enters karting at a junior level becomes a world champion, and it's the same for the girls – you have to get the numbers up to find somebody with all the right features and opportunities to then go on to be a contender to get a seat in Formula 1. But if you don't have a role model there, it's really hard to see the path or that it's even an option.
"And that's the good thing about Extreme E as well, that it's on normal television and not behind a paywall like motorsport often is. That's the important thing because they're going to see girls on the start line and they're not in the minority – it's normal.
"There's only 10 teams and we're all quite friendly with each other. A lot of the guys have said they have been surprised by the female talent as well. You get people like Sebastien Loeb coming in and racing with girls who have never been in competition with them. A lot of the men have said it's been amazing for the female potential in the series because it has fast-tracked their learning process and, ultimately, their speed."
Catie Munnings and Timmy Hansen took their first Extreme E victory in Greenland in 2021 (Red Bull Content Pool)Munnings is in the enviable position of having the backing of two bona fide powerhouses of the motorsport world. She has been a Red Bull athlete for several years and has raced with Andretti United since the inception of the series. And she couldn't be more proud to represent them both.
"From Red Bull, when you need some physio, to speak to other athletes about the mental side of performance, for extra media support – whatever it is, they have a department for it. I think that 360 degree approach isn't what you get with a lot of other brands and it's really helped me. There's always someone you can pick the phone up and call, and they understand the sport. It's really amazing.
"Working with Andretti, it's such a massive motorsport outfit in America. I got to go to the Indy 500 and see how it operates, and I was absolutely blown away by the setup they have. I think it translates across to Extreme E, as every decision made shows their experience in racing. They're thinking of the long game and they have the know-how to think about an overall championship.
"As drivers in a new championship you just want to get the 'now' right, and they have the ability to see beyond that and I think that's something that has been really valuable for me and for Timmy. My first conversations with them on the phone, when they were talking to me about signing with them, they kept reiterating how much of a family team they were and that's something I've felt this year travelling around the world with them. You hold the status to be able to speak freely and come up with ideas within the team and they'll listen to you."
Munnings wants to add more victories to her collection in Extreme E this year (Red Bull Content Pool)Munnings and her team-mate Hansen are already race winners in Extreme E, having taken victory at the 2021 Arctic X-Prix – the first ever motorsport event held in Greenland. They finished third in the championship in that inaugural campaign, but results last year were harder to come by – a record the Andretti pair wants to set straight in this third season.
"Ultimately, the goal is always to win. I'm sure you can ask anyone in the series and they'll tell you the same. One thing I've learned from working with Timmy – he's a world champion and knows what it takes – is that it takes a step-by-step approach. The whole 'A plus B equals results' – A is what you control, B is what you can't control, and you can only focus on what you can control.
"There are always factors out of your control, whether it's mechanical or incidents on track, but if you put everything you can into doing the best job, then that's the only way you can move forward through the year. If you put too much pressure on it then you can make silly mistakes and that's when it all spirals. So that's the championship mindset that I hope I'm going to take into this year."
To find out more about Catie Munnings, head to her Red Bull athlete profile page: redbull.com/gb-en/athlete/catie-munnings
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
