Meeting the Women of Formula Trinity

Katie Kilroy

Third Year Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Student

Julia Borel

Third Year Electronic Engineering Student

Katherine Hardgrave

Third Year Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Student

Why did you join the team? How long have you been on the team?

Katie: I joined the team at the beginning of the first year, so I’ve been on the team for 2 and a half years.

By chance, I heard about their open evening talk in the basement of Kennedy’s pub near college. I had never heard of Formula Student before this, yet I’ve always loved cars. After meeting the team and hearing of their future plans, joining them was an easy sell.

There are not many opportunities in college where you can put the theory from lectures to practice or be able to say that you built a race car with your friends.

Julia:  I first thought about joining Formula Trinity at the start of the second year. A close friend of mine whom I enjoy watching F1 with asked me to come along with her to that year’s recruitment event.

I had some idea about what form of engineering I was planning to learn for the third year, but I wanted to get some more experience before making my stream choice. After listening to the talks I really became interested in finally doing something with my degree that doesn’t involve studying, so I joined the electronics department here in formula trinity.

Katherine: This is my first year on the team! I joined Formula Trinity because it seemed like a really interesting project to get involved in, and a few of my friends that are also on the team seemed to really enjoy it. Funnily enough, Julia and Katie were actually the ones that convinced me to join so I submitted an application for the Business and Operations team. I decided to apply for this team because I wanted to gain some experience working on the management side of an engineering project. 

Tell us about your experience on the team.

Katie: Being on the team is one experience I never expected to have during my college years. It has helped me grow as a person and meet amazing people while gaining faith in my abilities. There have been difficult moments like working late nights to get designs and components completed. Yet these moments are the greatest opportunities for growth, from contacting amazing speakers for an event to communicating with multiple departments.

Julia: My experience has been quite a rollercoaster so far. I was thrown into this major project of building a formula-style car, a project I never really saw myself showing interest in before. Sadly with the global pandemic that graced us last year, my time here with formula trinity has mostly been a virtual experience. This brought up lots of new challenges for us as a team but somewhat allowed us to adapt and continue to build our car given the circumstances. Hopefully, we get to go to Silverstone this summer and see all of our hard work pay off from these past two years.

Katherine: My experience on the team has been fantastic. I’ve had the opportunity to gain experience in the areas of project management, graphic design, public speaking and much more while organising Femuary the last few months . It’s been particularly interesting to speak with so many experts in the motorsports industry, who are paving the way for young women like us looking to overcome the gender imbalance in this field. It has been such a rewarding experience seeing everything come together now! One of my favourite things about being on the team is getting to network with so many new people, despite the fact that all of our meetings are online this year! 

There has been an increase of women in motorsport events and the motorsport industry, why do you think that is?

Katie: Personally, I have seen an increase in women in STEM and other mainly male industries as a whole, not just motorsports. I believe this is due to those who are constantly making sure their voices are heard.

This goes from from the American women’s soccer team calling out the unequal pay gap between them and their male counterparts to the W-series beginning in 2019 and the first female driver in the Ferrari Driver Academy this year. This is due to women and those who support them constantly raising awareness and inspiring young women to go full speed towards all the opportunities available to them.

Julia: In my opinion, there is a constant increase in women in stem programs as a whole, globally. I am glad to see that this includes an increase in women working in the motorsport industry. In my opinion, there still is a major lack of women in the more professional side of motorsports, but I know that this is only the beginning. I feel that we will see a lot more female representatives in the motorsports industry in the coming years.

Katherine: In recent years, huge efforts have been made not only to promote women in motorsports, but in STEM too. Women in STEM related careers in my own life were a large part of the reason I initially considered pursuing an engineering degree. It’s so important to have role models and having more and more female drivers to look up to has definitely made a huge difference. Nicole Drought particularly has helped young girls realise that there are opportunities in motorsports for Irish women.

Do you have a motivational or aspirational figure that you look up to in the motorsport industry?

Katie: Someone who inspires and motivates me is Susie Wolff. She was the last woman to drive at an Formula 1 weekend and one out of six women to ever do so. She participated in two FPs in 2014, being the first woman in 22 years to drive at an F1 weekend.

Since her retirement from driving, she has continued her work in motorsports. She is now team captain of the Venturi Formula E team while still promoting the opportunities for women in motorsport. She co-founded the Dare to Be Different organisation and now an ambassador to the FIA Girls on Track campaign which both encourage and support young girls joining motorsports. Her work and achievements inspire me to do my part in getting other women involved in Formula Student and to keep pursuing my dreams.

Julia: One person that has really stuck out to me is Nicci Daly. She is an engineer like myself, but she also established her own female karting team who recently competed in the Tillotson World Cup event in Louth. Daly is constantly trying to raise awareness for women in motorsport, and this is definitely something I look up to.

Katherine: Although I don’t aspire to become a race car driver, I have an enormous amount of admiration for Nicole Drought. She is Ireland’s top female racing driver and was the first woman to win a race in the Irish Touring Car championship. Now as an ambassador for Formula Female she is helping to encourage more women to consider careers in motorsport.

Explain your role on the team, what do you like the most about working on this team?

Katie: Being a part of the Formula Trinity team is different from anything else I have ever done. It teaches you the importance of good communication and the ability to work long intense hours. This is my third year on the chassis department and currently designing and carrying out finite element analysis on this year’s chassis structure design for our first car.

This year I became a member of the Business and Operations department to help manage the team’s social media accounts, promotions, and events. I design the graphics for our team, write blogs and articles as well as arrange and organise events such as quizzes and the Femuary Campaign.

Julia: I am the electronics deputy head. I am in charge of co-leading the electronics department with the electronics head, Senan Stanley. I mainly focus on the safety systems and implementations of circuits into the car.

Katherine: I’m a Business and Operations co-lead for our new autonomous team. This has involved recruiting members who have an interest in learning about artificial intelligence and autonomous racing. After a successful recruitment campaign in collaboration with DU Computer Science Society and TCD Netsoc our team now has 29 members, all of which are enthusiastic to work towards the Formula Student Artificial Intelligence competition. I also work on promoting the new autonomous team on social media, graphic designing, organising events, obtaining sponsorship, writing articles for the blog along with autonomous operations. I’m very keen to increase the number of female students on the autonomous team as we currently only make up about one sixth of our team. Hopefully running targeted campaigns such as Femuary will help me on that mission!

Can you think of any ways to promote the participation of women in motorsports?

Katie: The best way to promote women to join and work in motorsports is showing the success of other women in the industry. Having women representation in the industry is super important. From Formula Trinity experience alone, I know friends of mine joined the team as they saw me already succeeding on the team.

Making sure that the industry is a comfortable and safe environment for women is vital. Men play a key role in this as many don’t even see there’s a problem in the first place. This is why events such as our ‘Femuary’ campaign are aimed at everyone. The best way to promote women participation in motorsport is to raise awareness of the issues at hand and fix it. This will naturally result in an increase of women joining the motorsports industry.

Julia: Events like this panel are great for promoting and raising awareness within the motorsports industry for any cause. Regarding raising awareness to women in motorsports specifically, I think even having representatives like myself and all the other girls on our team is a great way of promoting women working in motorsports. I know that for me personally putting myself forward for this team was quite daunting because I knew how male dominant this industry is. Seeing one of my good friends from college show interest in it made me feel not alone. In a sense seeing a girl on the team doing quite well gave me that extra push of confidence to put myself forward too.

Katherine: There are so many great organisations promoting gender inclusivity in motorsport, as everyone from drivers to engineers in this industry tend to be male. Campaigns aimed specifically at encouraging women to consider careers in motorsport have made an otherwise intimidating industry to seem more accessible. It is so important for young women to realise the opportunities available for them. The F1 in Schools competition promotes this idea by showcasing female talent and having inspirational figures such as Nicole Drought speak at their events.