‘Never quit before you’ve been to the limit ‘ - Competition Manager Delphine Biscaye on building F1 ACADEMY's talent pool for the future

Taking charge of racing operations alongside nurturing the next generation of female drivers, Delphine Biscaye has a multi-faceted role as F1 ACADEMY’s Competition Manager.

In the newest feature to our Pathways Into Motorsport series, Biscaye discusses her work in identifying future talent on-track and the lessons she’s learnt throughout her career.

Climbing the ladder from a Research and Development Engineer at the Williams F1 Team, Biscaye later became the Team Manager for the Venturi and later Maserati Formula E teams before joining F1 ACADEMY ahead of its inaugural season last year.

Overseeing logistics, paddock operations and sporting regulations, Biscaye is at the epicentre of racing weekend activities, but to get to that position, she had to push through and pave her own way.

When asked whether her journey would have been easier if there were more female role models in the industry, Biscaye admits: “I’m not sure my journey would have been easier at that time. It was hard at times, but the fact that we were so few women in motorsport in the paddock when I started also helped me in some ways.

“It’s a hard question and it’s one a lot of people ask, I try to remember only of the positive sides. I know it’s been difficult, I know it’s not an everyday struggle, but it’s definitely been some struggles and some battles.

“For example when I started in Formula E, there were two team managers who were women, but I was the youngest. It was my first time in that paddock. I didn’t have a big network in motorsport and no one knew me from somewhere else because before that, I was in the design office, I was not on-track. It was definitely hard to be the only women there.”

“But on the other side, when I was at Williams, I was going into the production department as one of the only women and I was 23 or 25 — so the youngest — and everyone was really helpful (…) I was very lucky I think because most of the men I’ve worked with in motorsport were actually really empowering women and helping, so I try to keep only that side. I try to not remind myself too much of the difficulties.

With her extensive experience in the industry, Biscaye has learnt a thing or two along the way, not least the importance of perseverance.

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“I would say never quit,” she says. “If you want to do something, whatever it is, you should just push and never quit before you’ve been to the limit. It might work or not work in the end, but at least you don’t regret anything. If you really want to do it, just put everything into it and try.”

Biscaye adds: “The best advice I would give to young girls is to believe in themselves. Not to think it’s not for girls, I don’t know anyone who’s done it before or it must be very difficult. If you want to do it, just push and give everything to get here.

“There are lots of different jobs in motorsport as well. That’s sometimes the difficulty, they don’t really know where they could fit. They see only the mechanics, engineers and on TV, we’re not very represented. They just need to think if I want to be in motorsport, let’s find the different opportunities, let’s find the different jobs and find the one that would suit me best. Then just keep pushing and do everything to get it.”

Driven by F1 ACADEMY’s mission to encourage and inspire the next generation. Biscaye is optimistic that the steady change in recent years will be accelerated through the series.

“F1 ACADEMY can really help more young women to find a pathway into motorsport by increasing the representation and giving visibility to women in motorsport,” she explains. “One of the most difficult things when you’re a young girl is to know what you can do in motorsports.

“By showing them what we’re doing and the different roles we have give them examples of how they can join and what could fit them.”

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She continues: “I’ve been working in motorsport for nearly 15 years now. I’ve seen the evolution in motorsport and in the paddock with more and more women being present. When I was asked to join F1 ACADEMY at the beginning of 2023, it was giving a meaning to what I’ve been doing for those 15 years.

“When I was with Venturi and already (working) with Susie (Wolff), we tried to increase the diversity and the women in our team. We managed to reach a third of the team being female, so going from fighting to get one-third to actually doing it on a global scale — trying to attract more female drivers but also, more women in all kinds of jobs and roles really had a meaning for me.”

Striving for long-term change, Biscaye’s role away from the racetrack sees her work closely with Katie Denver, F1 ACADEMY’s Driver Development Lead, to scout those early on it their journeys. Looking to put them on the best road to success, she’s keen to build a grid overflowing with talent — the first stage of this is already in place with the field increasing to 18 cars from 2025.

“For us, success would mean more and more female drivers and so many high performing that it’s actually difficult to restrict our selection, even with a big grid,” she explains. “Increasing the number of cars on the grid is one step, but increasing the talent pool is the next step.

“We can already see that we’ve got more and more (drivers) and the selection process of the teams will become more demanding in the coming years because there will be more good and performing drivers, which is great. Increasing the talent pool and working on the development of female drivers from a younger age is the only way to improve their performance and get a chance to find one who can reach the top.

“Then to see one driver from F1 ACADEMY jumping into F3, F2 and maybe to F1, I think it’s the ultimate goal for us. I would really like to see it! I would like to see one of the drivers that we’ve identified as a future talent at 13 or 14 coming into F1 ACADEMY, becoming the Champion and then progressing up to F1. I think that’s the ultimate goal for the driver.

“Then off-track, to see female representation increasing in the paddock, to see more females having important roles like Team Managers, race engineers, Team Principals and mechanics. To see a mixed paddock, which is still not the case, I think is really one of the goals and what I’d like to see in the future.”