Emma Gilmour became the first woman to drive for McLaren when she made her debut in the Extreme E series alongside co-driver Tanner Foust.
The Kiwi is the first woman to drive for the team since its inception almost 60 years ago, though she has admitted that she didn’t think the initial email from Zak Brown was real.
Despite being the team’s debut in the series they were on for a good result in the first round of the championship until a crash for Foust took them out of the final race.
Gilmour recently spoke to Gulf Business about the series and how her drive came about.
“I’ll never forget the moment [when they contacted me]. It was an email from [the CEO of McLaren Racing] Zak Brown saying he wanted to speak with me. Initially, I thought it was just a scam email, but then I looked at the footer and realised it was not,” Gilmour said.
“At the time I didn’t quite recognise that I would be the first female [driver signed onto McLaren]. Because I never dreamed of being an F1 driver, I never dreamed of driving for McLaren.”
Extreme E has seen a number of big names in motorsport involved, including Niko Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, who both own teams in the series, while the McLaren team also joined the championship this season.
The series sees two drivers to each car, one male and one female, in each car, putting equality as well as sustainability at the centre of the championship.
“It’s a brand-new kind of motorsport. They haven’t taken an existing form of motorsport, electrified it and made it 50- 50 male and female driving ratio,” Gilmour said.
“F1 is an incredibly tough sport to get into, regardless of gender. There are so many other things that come into play including money, opportunity and timing. There is a lot of female talent out there and that talent pool is growing. We just need to keep feeding that talent pool so that the odds of [women competing] increases,” Gilmour said.
“In no other sport do you have women and men competing in the same equipment and on the same platform. That’s gives the next generation of girls something to aim for. It’s an amazing buzz to be representing a brand like McLaren in a series like Extreme E where you’re flying the flag for women in sport and being the role model for what is possible through never giving up on a dream.”
The second round of the championship will be held in Italy May 7-8.
Main image: Emma Gilmour social media