The Lotus Formula 1 team caused a stir in the small F1 world when it announced on February 26 it had signed Spaniard Carmen Jorda as its 2015 development driver.
The 26-year-old started her career in 2001, racing karts. After four years in the category, Jorda moved to Britain to compete in the European Formula 3 Open series where she ranked fourth overall. In 2010, she then moved to America where she contested selected events in the Indy Lights series. After that, she returned to Europe and spent three seasons racing in the highly competitive GP3 series for teams Ocean Racing Technology, Bamboo Engineering and Koiranen.
Her nomination as part of the Lotus F1 Team triggered a lot of comments. But if we’re being honest, mostly sexist ones from male rivals. “Some people got it wrong. The program is to develop me as a driver; it’s not for me to develop the car,” Carmen Jorda told Auto123.com in Melbourne. How did it happen? “I did testing in simulators with a few teams and we were interested in doing some work with a Formula 1 team for 2015, and Lotus was one of them. Lotus presented us with a good package,” she explained.
So Gravity -- the driver management firm -- did not play a role? “I am not managed by Gravity. Jolyon [Palmer] is the third driver and he’s not a Gravity managed driver. And if you’re a Gravity driver, it doesn’t mean that you will be a Lotus driver,” Carmen told us. “There are a lot of things I must learn before I get into an F1 car. We have a really good simulator at Lotus with a moving platform. It’s a lot better than the other one I tested. The feelings it generates are stunning. An F1 car is obviously faster than a GP3 car, and also more complex, it goes a lot faster into the corners and the braking power is amazing,” the young lady explained us. This year, Carmen Jorda will attend all the Grands Prix. She will spend a lot of her time at the Lotus factory in Enstone. She also needs to train hard physically and also attend technical meetings with the engineers to understand how a turbo hybrid F1 car works.
She also confirmed that she would drive the current Lotus E23 Hybrid during one of the test session later this year. “The team will put me in the E23 Hybrid to test. We don’t have the date yet. That’s not a problem because we’re not in a hurry. We want to take things step by step. We will make the decision to when I am ready to take the wheel of the E23 Hybrid,” Carmen explained. “I will be testing a Formula Renault 3.5 car before driving the E23. We also wanted to run a racing programme alongside my development work with Lotus, but we decided not to do it. To be honest, I want to stay focused on my work with Lotus because this is a great opportunity. It is the chance of a lifetime”, she continued. Carmen Jorda is convinced that a woman can succeed in motorsport. “Today’s F1 cars are a bit easier to drive. Five or six years ago, they were much difficult to drive, more physical. It was a big challenge for a woman to do well in an F1 car. Now, I have to say yes, it’s a bit easier,” she confessed. There’s a good chance to see two women driving F1 cars at one test session this year. “It will be interesting for sure between me and Susie [Wolff] during the test sessions. There are no women in Grand Prix racing today. But she has more experience than I. She’s been testing with Williams for three years now. I’ve always looked up at her. If she can do it, I can do it too,” Carmen told Auto123.com.
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