RACING driver Susie Wolff says she feels "very far away" from becoming the first woman to race in Formula 1 for 40 years.

 

Oban-born Wolff will drive for Williams at the Spanish Grand Prix first practice tomorrow but admits she realises she may never race.

The 32-year-old said: "Love it or hate it, motorsport is not purely talent. It never has been and never will be."

"I have shown I am capable, I'm in a very competitive team, I drive a car which is capable of podium positions," said Wolff.

But she admitted that Williams's decision to sign Adrian Sutil as their reserve driver this season was a blow.

"That was a sign that, 'Yes, you're close, but you are still very far away'," she said.

Williams went into the season without an official reserve driver, with Wolff designated as test driver and British GP2 driver Alex Lynn their development driver.

But when race driver Valtteri Bottas suffered a back injury and was forced to miss the season-opening grand prix in Australia, the team had no-one able to stand in at short notice.

Wolff only has a licence to drive in practice, not races, and the team felt that it would be too big a risk to ask her to drive in a grand prix when her last single-seater race was a decade ago in Formula Three.

She has not raced at all since 2012, when she completed the last of seven years in the DTM German touring car championship.

And a new point-based qualifying system for super-licences to be introduced next year will make it all the harder for those who have not won junior or qualifying championships.

"To find the budget to go through all those formulas, to get into the right team so that you actually win the championship in those formulas, that is a huge task for any driver regardless of gender," added Wolff.

"I hope it will get tweaked and adjusted.

"Love it or hate it, motorsport is not purely talent. It never has been and never will be."

Wolff will test again in Austria in June ahead of another practice appearance at the British GP on July 3.

Italian Lella Lombardi was the last woman to race a Formula 1 car - in 1976.

The last woman to enter a Formula 1 grand prix was Italian Giovanna Amati, but she failed to qualify for three races at the start of the 1992 season before being dropped by Brabham.

Englishwoman Katherine Legge was the last British woman to drive an F1 car on a race track when she took the wheel of a Minardi at Vallelunga in Italy in 2005.

Wolff started racing aged just eight and alongside her older brother David, spent countless weekends watching her father compete before deciding to give kart-racing a go herself.

Despite the family passion for motorbikes, she has never raced on two wheels. "A bike licence is too dangerous," she once said. "My dad won't let me have one."

He did, however, let her compete as a child and then a teenager in karts, where she raced in the British Championship, the European Championship and the World Championship. She then earned her place in Formula Renault where she achieved numerous podium finishes before moving on to Formula 3.

On a one-year contract, Wolff raced for the Mercedes team for seven years. While doing so, she met her Austrian-born husband, Toto Wolff, a major F1 investor who also sat on the Williams board. Her husband now works for rival team Mercedes and the pair live in Switzerland.