Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy)

Episode overview

Susie Wolff (Driven, F1 Academy, and Williams Formula One) is a former professional racing driver, and managing director of F1 Academy. Susie joins Armchair Expert to discuss her motorsport-obsessed childhood in Scotland, her grandfather's career as a daredevil motocross rider, and discovering karting as the only girl on the track. Susie and Dax talk about racing against Lewis Hamilton as a kid, the physical toll of driving an F1 car, and building F1 Academy from a financially unworkable idea into a fully-backed series for female drivers. Susie explains why performance is the purest validation, how femininity stopped feeling like weakness, and why writing a letter to her younger self was the most emotional part of writing her memoir.

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Short transcript highlights

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1. 0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair, expert, experts on expert.
2. 55:58And I obviously had a car boot to pick me up, and he wanted to surprise me.
3. 2:08:53Probably the moment he was going to ask you to be in his movie.