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Susie Wolff to launch women in motorsport initiative

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Susie Wolff is set to launch an initiative aimed at increasing the number of women involved in motorsport.

The former Williams test driver will be supporting a programme in conjunction with the Motor Sports Association UK designed to encourage more women to pursue careers in motorsport. Wolff - who retired from racing at the end of last year - will officially launch the initiative at next week's Autosport International Show in Birmingham.

"When I decided to hang up my helmet I knew I wanted to give something back," Wolff said. "I called Rob Jones, CEO of the MSA, who immediately shared my enthusiasm and passion. We very quickly put a great team together and are proud to launch our initiative at Autosport International.

"Our sport is performance based so gender is irrelevant. The opportunities are out there, we aim to inspire and drive female talent to make sure in the long term our sport is diverse."

After announcing her retirement from racing, Wolff revealed she believes there will not be another female who races in F1 soon. The new programme will initially focus on motorsport, with plans for it to branch out in to other male-dominated arenas in future.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.