The sad truth of the world is that there is barely an industry that you could talk about that isn’t male-dominated. That is arguably even more the case when it comes to Formula One, with the number of women involved in the sport depressingly low. That being said, there are definitely more than a few female voices that have managed to penetrate the various different media out there, being used as presenters, commentators and pundits by the likes of Sky Sports F1, F1TV and Channel 4. You can read about the people involved in the sport in a wider sense elsewhere on this site, with this page concentrating on the women.
Natalie Pinkham
In spite of the fact that the parents of Natalie Pinkham and her brother, Sam, were a barrister and a property developer, the pair of them chose to enter the world of the media. Sam became a presenter of the early morning show on Virgin FM, whilst Natalie graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in Politics before becoming a researcher for Endemol. Having earned her stripes as a researcher on Ready, Steady, Cook, Pinkham became an assistant producer on International King of Sports and later carried out the same role on the TV show Superstars before moving in front of the camera.
There is, perhaps, no better summation of women working in the media than the fact that Pinkham’s move to working on motorsports came on a TV channel called ‘Men and Motors’. She first worked with Sky Sports when she covered the Tennis Masters Cup for the broadcaster, later presenting for both ITV and the BBC, covering everything from football to rugby via beach soccer and poker. In 2008, she competed in Dancing on Ice on ITV, then in 2011 she presented BBC Radio 5 Live’s Formula One coverage before joining Sky Sports F1’s team as a pit lane reporter for the 2012 season onwards.
Jamie Chadwick
Jamie Laura Chadwick was born in Bath on the 20th of May 1998 before growing up on the Isle of Man. Her mother is an Indian-born businesswoman, whilst her father is a property developer. Neither of those options appealed to Chadwick, however, who was educated at Cheltenham College and began kart racing as an 11-year-old. She had followed her brother, Oliver Chadwick, into the sport, racing alongside him in the JHR Developments team. In the March of 2015, Chadwick became one of the Beechdean Motorsport drivers for the 2015 British GT Championship, racing in the GT4 class, taking five podiums in the Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
Having become the first female British GT Championship winner alongside her co-driver, Ross Gunn, she made the move to single-seater racing in 2017 and was announced as one of the racers in the inaugural W Series season two years later. That was also the year that she joined the Williams F1 Driver Academy, driving a Formula 1 car for the first time in the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed. All of which made her an ideal candidate for broadcasters such as Sky Sports F1 to use Chadwick whenever she’s available, joining the team ahead of the 2025 season as an expert analyst and a pundit alongside her racing career.
Rachel Brookes
If the fact that Natalie Pinkham had to work for a channel called ‘Men and Motors’ during the more formative part of her career is one sign of how women in the media are dealt with, the ‘vile abuse’ that Rachel Brookes has endured on social media over the years shows another side of things. That abuse was sent her way because she has never shied away from asking questions of the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen that have received snappy responses, which their ‘fans’ haven’t enjoyed. Her media career began with a decision to study Media and Communications in Birmingham, getting work in radio as a result.
From there, she joined TalkSport in 2009, gaining a huge amount of experience as a presenter. When Sky Sports F1 was announced as being the new home of Formula One in 2011, it was confirmed that Brookes would be joining the team once the channel went live the following year. She has been part of the team making up the coverage ever since, working out of the likes of the paddock, the pit lane and also the media pen. It made her a staple part of F1 coverage on Sky Sports, also allowing her to become a host of a podcast about the sport, in addition to numerous other Formula One-focussed offerings.
Naomi Schiff
Born in Antwerp on the 18th of May 1994, Naomi Schiff has a dual nationality thanks to the fact that her mother is from Rwanda. She actually grew up in South Africa, later moving to France. The reason that she later became part of Sky Sports F1’s coverage of Formula One is the fact that she began racing as a 16-year-old, taking part in the Formula Volkswagen Championship in single-seater cars. After having taken a brief break from racing, Schiff returned for the first round of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series. She proved her ability beyond any doubt in 2014 when she won the Clio Cup China Series with 135 points.
In the February of 2022, Schiff joined Natalie Pinkham to present the car launch for the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team car launch, then the following month it was confirmed that she would co-present a show on Sky Sports F1 called Any Driven Monday. She has been part of the team since then, alongside being a co-presenter for Canal+ on the team’s F1 coverage. As with far more women than is acceptable working in the media, Schiff has endured her share of abuse from people online. Thankfully, she is more than aware that these are just keyboard warriors, refusing to allow them to make her back away from presenting.
Danica Patrick
There was a time when Sky Sports F1 would turn to Danica Patrick on a regular basis to talk about racing, leaning on her experience in the likes of IndyCar and NASCAR racing. Patrick is the most successful female driver in the history of American open-wheel racing, whilst her win in the Indy Japan 300 in 2008 remains the only such victory by a woman driver in IndyCar. Patrick is an outspoken voice in the world of racing, which has included promoting conspiracy theories on her podcast and being a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. Whether that is why Sky Sports dropped her from the 2026 F1 coverage is unclear.
What we do know, though, is that she has indeed been dropped, which obviously means that she will be seen less by viewers in the United Kingdom. That doesn’t mean that she’s been entirely forgotten about when it comes to Formula One broadcasting, however. She was added to the roster of talking heads for Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix in 2024, for example. A one-time cover model for the likes of FHM, Sports Illustrated, TV Guide and ESPN: The Magazine, there are some who might argue that Patrick doesn’t do a lot of good for feminism in the media, but her talent in a motor car has always been beyond doubt.
Bernadette Collins
Known to most simply as ‘Bernie’, Bernadette Collins was born in the small Northern Irish village of Maguiresbridge towards the end of the 1980s. Her father worked in a garage, whilst Collins worked alongside him dismantling and building farming machinery when she was younger. Having attended Queen’s University Belfast, studying Mechanical Engineering, she initially had no intention of working in motor racing. It wasn’t until the final two years of study that she enrolled in the Formula Student programme organised by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, working to design, test and even drive small-scale Formula-style cars.
From there, Collins secured a place on the McLaren Formula One racing team graduate trainee programme in 2009, going on to become a performance engineer for the company. In the May of 2015, she joined Force India as a Senior Strategy Engineer, helping the team finish fourth in the Constructors’ Championship in 2016. In 2022, Collins became an analyst on F1 TV, then a year later she joined the Sky Sports F1 team in order to offer insight into the engineering side of the sport. She wrote How to Win a Grand Prix: From Pit Lane to Podium with Maurice Hamilton in 2024.
Laura Winter
Laura Winter left Loughborough University in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in English, having graduated Pate’s Grammar School three years earlier. Her first job saw her working in Social Media and Communications for the World Rowing Federation, giving her an insight into the world of media. Two years later, she became a freelance presenter, covering netball during the 2014 Commonwealth Games, also covering the likes of tennis, cricket and rugby for various networks. In 2017, her experience as a rower resulted in her becoming the Henley Royal Regatta reporter for BT Sport, which was a move into the mainstream.
F1TV’s Saudi weekend Warmup, great to debate F1’s rumbling topics with Laura Winter.https://t.co/zNSwAwFbva pic.twitter.com/eeVsMffMdy
— Alex Brundle (@AlexBrundle) April 17, 2025
It was the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix that saw her move into the world of Formula One coverage, then between 2020 and 2024 she became an almost permanent fixture in F1 TV’s pre-race and post-race coverage alongside Will Buxton. She became the lead presenter for F1 TV’s coverage from the 2025 season onwards, being a firm advocate for women in motorsport. On the back of Christian Horner being accused of inappropriate workplace behaviour, she said, “To the women and girls in motorsport, to the huge and growing numbers of female fans in this sport, here is a very good reminder for all of us. We are here to stay and we are right where we belong.”
Rosanna Tennant
It is probably fair to say that Rosanna Tennant took the long way round to working in the media. She graduated from Durham University in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish before deciding that she wanted to work as a journalist, earning a Master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from City, St George’s, University of London. During the early part of her career, she worked for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team on their digital content, as well as presenting on the Pole Position YouTube channel. She then began both reporting and presenting across Formula One and the various support series.
During the 2010s, Tennant joined the F1 TV on-air team, presenting both pre- and post-race shows from the paddock. She has also worked with BBC Radio 5 Live on their coverage of F1, regularly featuring on the podcast F1: Chequered Flag. In 2023, she began working as a reporter for Network 10’s live coverage of the Australian Grand Prix, also becoming an Ambassador for Girls on Track UK, which is an initiative launched by Motorsport UK to promote opportunities for young women and girls to work in motorsport. As someone who has done so for more than a decade, she is a perfect advocate.
Ruth Buscombe
When Ruth Buscombe graduated from the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering with a first-class honours degree, she was quickly snapped up by Scuderia Ferrari to work as a race strategist out of their headquarters. That was back in 2012, with Buscombe moving to the Haas F1 Team three years later in order to become their Strategy Engineer. After leaving Haas in 2016, she was without work for just three months before Sauber took her on board to help them finish ahead of Manor Racing in the 2016 Constructors’ Championship. At the end of the 2023 season, she left her Head of Race Strategy role.
At 2 285 m, air density drops 20 %, but the atmosphere somehow doubles. 🏎️🇲🇽
Another unforgettable @mexicogp in the books.
Thank you to the #F1TV teams trackside and in Biggin Hill for another stellar weekend @lauracwinter @hinchtown @chrismedland
📸 @alexvoconnor pic.twitter.com/GlJybAvgvh
— Ruth Buscombe (@RuthBuscombe) October 27, 2025
At that point, Buscombe made the move to become a presenter, getting work with F1 TV as both a presenter and a strategy analyst, being able to use her work in that role to inform viewers about why teams were making certain decisions and what they were potentially getting wrong. The first time she appeared on the channel was for the first practice session of the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, remaining with the channel ever since. In the February of 2016, Buscombe joined the Dare to be Different campaign as an ambassador, which aims to encourage female participation in all forms of motor racing in numerous different roles.
Lissie Mackintosh
Whilst pretty much every woman on this list has entered the broadcasting world via reasonably traditional means, the same can’t really be said of Lissie Mackintosh. Instead, she began to make a name for herself as a content creator, talking about all things F1 on channels such as TikTok and being thought of by some as part of the reason why so many young girls in their 20s had begun to take such an interest in the sport. In 2022, she began working as a presenter in the paddock, interviewing the likes of Charles Leclerc, Daniel Ricciardo and Jenson Button about the goings-on of the numerous different Formula One teams.
Lovely words from F1 presenter Lissie Mackintosh to @NaomiSchiff 💛 pic.twitter.com/C8e2uMFZGN
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) October 31, 2022
In the years that followed, Mackintosh established herself as a regular presenter and events host for various F1 teams and partners. Aligning with the platform Females in Motorsport, Mackintosh has looked to help others who want to be more involved in the world of motor racing. She also hosts the Going Purple podcast, which looks at numerous different aspects of F1 and motorsports more generally. Guests that have joined her in the past include Oscar Piastri, Nyck de Vries and Jamie Chadwick, whilst clients that have engaged her in work are the likes of Aston Martin, Mercedes AMG Petronas and Red Bull.
Fighting the Good Fight in a Man’s World
As you have no doubt picked up from reading about the numerous women who work in the media covering Formula One, many of them are keen to help others up the ladder behind them. The male-dominated nature of the sport is such that it can feel as though there aren’t many roles for women, meaning that some would be forgiven for being protective of what they’ve got. Instead, the vast majority of personalities that you will have seen on the likes of Sky Sports F1 and F1 TV look to help other women and girls out as best they can, knowing that it is more than a little bit difficult to succeed in what is a man’s world.
Thankfully, that opinion is changing with every passing year. The popularity of shows such as Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix has seen more and more female sports fans becoming interested in F1 races, which means that broadcasters look to find as many voices as they can to appeal to this growing demographic. This is only likely to continue in the coming years, with the likes of the W Series put in place to encourage more female participation in motorsports, which will hopefully see even more opportunities present themselves in the media to the point that it isn’t such a man’s world after all.