{"id":234988,"date":"2024-06-21T13:43:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T13:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/21\/f1-academy-managing-director-susie-wolffs-race-weekend-day-in-the-life-has-no-breaks\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:16:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:16:31","slug":"f1-academy-managing-director-susie-wolffs-race-weekend-day-in-the-life-has-no-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/21\/f1-academy-managing-director-susie-wolffs-race-weekend-day-in-the-life-has-no-breaks\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff’s race weekend day-in-the-life has no breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\n

As a former racing driver, F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff doesn\u2019t like moving slowly.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not someone that needs lots of breaks,\u201d she told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI certainly feel at the end of the day that I can\u2019t speak any more because I\u2019ve normally spoken throughout the whole weekend and I can\u2019t really bear to hear my own voice anymore. But generally, I\u2019m pretty good at running on adrenaline.\u201d<\/p>\n

F1 Academy, an all-women racing series in its second year, globe-trots across seven circuits alongside Formula 1. Its 15 drivers are up-and-coming racers, who, like Wolff, began their careers in karts, and have their sights set on lifting the F1 World Championship trophy one day.<\/p>\n

F1 has boomed in the U.S. as a result of its 2017 acquisition by Liberty Media<\/a> and its hit Netflix<\/a> docu-series Drive To Survive<\/em>, which has garnered the attention of 7 million global viewers<\/a>. As its popularity grows, so, too, does the diversity of its audience. According to F1 CEO Stefano Domincali, 40% of F1\u2019s fanbase<\/a> are women\u2014despite the sport having no women drivers.<\/p>\n

Wolff and F1 Academy are working to rectify that by serving as a pipeline to bring more women into the sport to climb the ranks and one day compete in F1. Wolff, a self-proclaimed optimist, believes there will be a woman driver in the so-called pinnacle of motorsport in the next five or six years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a massive undertaking. And this weekend, as F1 Academy travels to Barcelona for its third race of the season\u2014the F1 grand prix weekend was attended by over 280,000 people<\/a> last year\u2014Wolff\u2019s busy schedule will reflect that.<\/p>\n

Wolff shared an inside look at her bumper-to-bumper days of race weekends with Fortune<\/em> ahead of F1 Academy\u2019s race weekend, which runs from June 21 to 23.<\/p>\n

Pedal to the metal<\/strong><\/h2>\n

6:00 a.m.:<\/strong> An early riser, Wolff begins her day with a coffee, but no breakfast. She leans on the support of sponsors Tommy Hilfiger and Charlotte Tilbury for her get-ready routine, which includes a team kit courtesy of the American outfitter\u2014and an eight-minute makeup routine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell I like to do everything with speed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

10:00 a.m.:<\/strong> Wolff then heads to the race track up to six hours before the starting lights activate. Between meetings and a team lunch at the paddock\u2019s hospitality building, she makes her way to the track to ensure things are running smoothly before the weekend\u2019s events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always like to go down and see the cars go into the garage,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cYou see all the teams and just make sure that everything feels like it\u2019s in a good place before everyone heads to the grid for the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff gets better than a front-row seat for the races: She watches cars zoom by from the pitlane, alternating which team\u2019s garage she stands in front of based on \u201cwhichever team feels right in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another pitlane perk is the short walk from there to the podium ceremony, where the top-three racers lift their trophies and spray champagne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the best parts of the day,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, the brutality of sport is only ever one winner, but that winner and that team are normally very, very happy, and it\u2019s nice to be around them and to feel their enthusiasm and positivity after the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

10:00 p.m.:<\/strong> \u201cThe minute I leave the racetrack, and my adrenaline levels drop, that\u2019s when I realized just how exhausted I am,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n

Immediately following the last race of the weekend, Wolff packs up her belongings and drives to the airport, where she and her husband, Toto, the team principal of the Mercedes F1 Team, fly home to see their young son.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wolff winds down after dinner, trying to squeeze in a couple pages of a book before going to sleep by 11 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m normally in bed pretty early because I know if I\u2019ve made it home, that I have to get up around 6:30 to do the school run the next day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rinse and repeat for Wolff, who travels seven to 10 days of the month. With so many flights across the world, Wolff tries to maintain a delicate sleeping equilibrium. She recalled a particularly brutal trip last year from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi for the F1 season\u2019s final two grands prix. It took her 10 days to adjust back to normal sleeping patterns after braving the 12-hour time difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually just best to sleep when you can, as opposed to trying to be too rigorous on a jet lag plan,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, not driving anymore means I don\u2019t need to be at my absolute peak performance. I actually just need to make sure that I\u2019m capable of doing meetings and of making good decisions when I\u2019m at the racetrack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff stays active through frequent pilates and games of padel, a relative of pickleball popular among F1 drivers, particularly those in Monaco. As with sleep, she tries to find moments to exercise when she can without being too rigid in her routines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI simply try and do what I can when I can,\u201d Wolff said, \u201cAnd don\u2019t beat myself up if I don\u2019t make every last set or every last expectation I put on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ad_1] As a former racing driver, F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff doesn\u2019t like moving slowly. \u201cI\u2019m not someone that needs lots of breaks,\u201d she<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}