Tatiana Calderon was the youngest member of the F1 grid when she drove a full season for Toro Rosso in 2006.
Tatiana Calderon has passed 50,000 followers on Instagram, and currently leads a team running three women drivers in the lower division of Grand Prix circuits, all for the same team.
Having competed on Formula One’s grid, a late career switch – from Formula Ford’s lower-category Toro Rosso team to just the three German Silverstone circuits – paved the way for Calderon to start leading a team.
And with drivers such as Simona de Silvestro and Emma O’Reilly using IndyCar, Indy Lights, NASCAR, Camping World and another – all for the same team, Silverstone Racing – Calderon is in the unusual position of leading a single team-finish for two women at once.
While neither Pinkerton has cracked into F1, this has, on a small but growing, level, opened up a role for other women in the lower categories of a sport many had claimed would remain largely as it was.
“Things like I experienced at Toro Rosso was never considered. Even if they were for women it was as public transport only,” Calderon told BBC Sport.
“What I was really aiming for was to provide an interesting platform for the women who were joining the team. To open the door for women who wanted to work at Silverstone.”
Silverstone are one of only two single-car teams operating on all three Silverstone circuits. Pennzoil-backed Le Mans-backed Manor has a presence on all three at the Rotherham circuit, only pulling out of the British Grand Prix after three years.
While Calderon may have to wait a while for a Super Formula podium of her own, she is running second on the podium for the Silverstone team, behind Gilles Coulthard, in the 2019 Le Mans Rookie season.
That means Calderon has won an achievement of triple appeal with British fans – she’s a Le Mans Series graduate, a second-ever F1 race for a woman and a beaten Cup title winner in Australia in 2006, when she was the youngest ever member of the F1 grid.
The issue of women on F1’s podiums was raised at the British Grand Prix, when former Formula One driver Mark Webber criticised the Red Bull line-up of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen on the podium, when both were made up of Australians.
Barring a change in the equation, the Gold Coast-born Calderon’s route to Grand Prix podiums will continue in future. Although, to do that, there is one thing missing – for the time being.
While Calderon continues to head home for a dip in the ocean, and snack on Irish soda bread at the restaurant where she still works, she and team-mate Sara Plummer join fellow F3 drivers De Silvestro and O’Reilly in the process of designing a set of multi-purpose gloves.
With half their names – an all-female tie – forming part of their call signs, it seemed only right to make a gesture in the same vein.
“We are always looking for new ways to make things more diverse on our teams and we certainly liked the idea of creating something like that,” said Calderon.
“We did some research and we didn’t realise how big a problem this was, so we are doing what we can to try and make it better.”
BBC Sport
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