Williams F1 deputy team principal Claire Williams insists that the team's test and development driver Susie Wolff has fully earned her place there.
"Susie is a valuable part of our team with a specific function, and she fills this function very effectively. Otherwise she would not be here," said Williams in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
"[She is here] only because of her own performance. If you do not believe me, talk to our engineering team working with her. She helped in the simulator to develop the car that our drivers drive at every Grand Prix.
"If she was not doing well, you really believe that we would keep her? We are a world champion team with huge ambitions! I wouldn't put our future at risk employing a driver who does not know what she's doing. We'd look pretty silly if we did. And it would not help us to achieve our goals.
"She works really hard. She had to fight for a decade against all these obstacles throughout her career, and she has managed to reach Formula One. People should have more respect for her."
Williams herself insisted that while Formula One was still male-dominated in terms of the number of people working within the sport, things had nonetheless changed considerably in the last decade.
"Formula One is quite different than they were ten or even five years ago today," she said.
"There are now many influential women in motorsport. Many women are working behind the scenes, of which most people know nothing, because the cameras rarely show them.
"We have mechanics, material engineers, aerodynamicists. Eight percent of our engineers at Williams are women. This sounds little, but four years ago the proportion of women here was zero.
"We are not there yet, there is still much to do, but it gets better. It just takes time."
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