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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · June 24, 2026 · 02:09:41

Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy)

Susie Wolff, former professional racing driver and now managing director of the F1 Academy, joins Dax to discuss her journey from a motorsport-obsessed childhood in Scotland to racing against Lewis Hamilton as a kid and eventually building a development series for female drivers. She opens up about the physical demands of driving an F1 car, the evolution of her relationship with femininity in a male-dominated sport, and the emotional experience of revisiting her past through her memoir. The conversation explores what it means to be validated purely by performance when almost everything else around you questions your place.

This summary was generated from show notes and public descriptions, not from a full transcript review. Details may contain inaccuracies.

Highlights

The physical toll of driving an F1 car
Susie explains the extreme and often underestimated physical demands of piloting a Formula 1 car.
Building F1 Academy from an unworkable idea
She details how she transformed a financially impossible concept for an all-female racing series into a fully-backed reality.
Performance as the purest validation
On the track, Susie found that raw performance became the ultimate, unarguable measure of her worth, separate from gender.

Editorial

Motorsport-obsessed childhood
Susie grew up in Scotland surrounded by motorsport, heavily influenced by a grandfather who was a daredevil motocross rider.
Only girl on the karting track
As a child discovering karting, she was immediately aware of being the only girl on the grid.

References

DrivenSusie Wolffmemoir

Misc

Raced against Lewis Hamilton as a child
Grandfather was a daredevil motocross rider
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