Fran Longstaff

Dr. Fran Longstaff isn’t a racer—she’s the woman building the roadmap to find Formula 1’s first female World Champion. As Head of Research at More than Equal, she’s leading the most ambitious, data-driven effort in motorsport history to crack the code on what it actually takes for women to compete at the pinnacle of racing.

EARLY YEARS

Long before she became motorsport’s secret weapon, Fran Longstaff built her foundation in sport psychology. She’s a trained sport psychologist who spent years working with athletes, teams, and businesses through her practice, Performing Mindset, based in Brighton. Her background in counseling principles and skills development gave her a unique lens on athlete performance—one that would prove essential when motorsport came calling.

Longstaff’s academic rigor and practical experience made her the perfect candidate to tackle one of racing’s most stubborn problems: why, despite decades of effort, female participation in motorsport drops from 10% at grassroots level to just 4% at elite competition. She wasn’t content with anecdotes or assumptions. She wanted evidence.

OTHER INTERESTS

Beyond motorsport research, Longstaff has been deeply engaged in mental health advocacy, particularly the distinction between mental health and mental illness. She’s spoken publicly about how athletes can maintain excellent mental health even while managing mental illness—a nuance often lost in performance conversations. Her work spans professional coaching, athlete support, and team development, always with an emphasis on evidence-based approaches that actually move the needle.

EARLY SUCCESS

Longstaff’s breakthrough came when she joined More than Equal, the fully funded development and research programme founded by businessman Karel Komárek and former F1 driver David Coulthard. Her mission? Build the largest data lake on the planet on the predictors of female racing driver performance. No pressure.

The challenge was staggering. When More than Equal published its Inside Track report in 2023, Longstaff discovered there were fewer than 30 research papers on the human factors related to driver performance. For female drivers specifically? The data was virtually non-existent. She was, as one article put it, “building the road as they walk.”

So she got to work. Longstaff led the charge in creating evidence-based, personalized programmes for female drivers. She examined everything from physical benchmarks to cognitive performance to how varying hormones affect driver capability. She didn’t just ask what separated good drivers from great ones—she asked what specific barriers women faced, and how to systematically dismantle them.

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2023: Published groundbreaking Inside Track report revealing massive gaps in motorsport performance research, particularly for female drivers[1].
• 2024: Led research and published landmark white paper “It’s Never Been A Thing: Lessons in Gender Equality from Drag Racing,” examining why drag racing achieved gender parity when other motorsport disciplines failed[2].
• 2025: Secured partnership between More than Equal and F1 Academy as Official Driver Performance & Research Partner, gaining direct access to develop rising female talent[3].
• Ongoing: Overseeing PhD programmes at Manchester Metropolitan University focused on female driver performance, including studies on hormonal impact on racing capability[4].

INSPIRATIONS

Longstaff draws inspiration from disciplines that have solved what motorsport hasn’t. Her deep dive into drag racing revealed a sport where gender “has never been a thing”—where women compete on equal footing because the culture, infrastructure, and opportunity were built with inclusion from the start. That white paper wasn’t just academic—it was a blueprint showing other motorsports exactly what they’ve been getting wrong.

She’s also inspired by the drivers themselves. Working directly with F1 Academy racers like Ivonn, Skye, and Katrina, Longstaff sees firsthand the talent being left on the table. Her motivation is simple: stop wasting potential because the system wasn’t designed to develop it.

REPUTATION

Dr. Longstaff has become the go-to authority on female driver development in motorsport. She’s a frequent speaker at industry conferences, where her data-driven approach cuts through the usual platitudes about “needing more women in racing.” She doesn’t traffic in hope—she traffics in evidence.

Her research philosophy is holistic. As she explained to F1 Academy: “In recent years there’s been a clear shift toward holistic performance optimization in sport. We’re helping grow that evidence base—especially for female drivers—by defining the physical and cognitive benchmarks needed to compete at the highest level.”

Longstaff is building what she calls “the largest data lake on the planet” on female racing performance, and the industry is paying attention. Her partnership with F1 Academy gives her unprecedented access to develop and track talent, creating a feedback loop that will inform driver development for generations.

She’s also unafraid to call out the problem. As she noted, female participation drops by more than half between grassroots and elite levels. That’s not a pipeline problem—that’s a systemic failure. And she’s determined to fix it.

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

Longstaff’s roadmap is clear and ambitious. Through the More than Equal partnership with F1 Academy, she’s implementing her four-phase talent development model: identify top talent globally, profile their strengths and gaps, develop personalized training programmes, and optimize performance with real-time data. The goal isn’t just to get a woman into Formula 1—it’s to create a replicable, scalable system that produces multiple female F1 drivers.

She’s continuing her research into how female physiology impacts performance, particularly around hormonal cycles, and translating those findings into competitive advantages rather than accepted limitations. She’s also expanding the evidence base beyond F1, working across motorsport disciplines to identify what works and what doesn’t when it comes to developing female talent.

As she put it: “If we want to see real change in female participation at the highest levels of motorsport, we need to take an evidence-based approach.” Translation? No more guessing. No more hoping. Just data, development, and results.

The finish line? Formula 1’s first female World Champion. And Fran Longstaff is building the map to get there.

REFERENCES

[1] Leaders in Sport – Talent Identification Archives
[2] Motorsport Week – More than Equal Unveils Research on Gender Equality in Drag Racing
[3] ESPN – F1 Academy Reaffirms Commitment to Female F1 Driver Development Partnership
[4] Raceteq – Where Will the Next Female F1 Driver Come From?
F1 Academy – How F1 Academy and More Than Equal Are Building a Database
YouTube – The Science Behind Finding F1’s First Female Driver
Performing Mindset – About
More Than Equal – F1 Academy Partnership PR
Leaders in Sport – The Four Phases of Talent Development Decoded