Marliya Leach looks back on a childhood of racing and discusses the motorsport world as a female in Karting.
When I walk through the gates of Snetterton race track I am greeted by crowds of engineers
crouched beneath cars and changing tires. The familiar smell of diesel hits very quickly the
closer you begin to get to the cars. One of the cars quickly pulls out of the garage, making a
sharp left turn to begin leaving the pits. The sound of the engine begins very loudly but slowly
trails off as the car is driven into the first corner. The team’s mechanics and engineers stand
watching the car quickly turn and accelerate, their eyes following the driver’s every move. The
team beside me also begins to prepare the car for testing, I see a glimpse of the driver; helmet
on and head down. He bounds into the car, his team warn him of a hydraulics issue that they
had in the last practice before the car speeds off, in the footsteps of the driver already on the
track.
I find myself getting distracted by all of the action on track, so I force myself to find Marliya’s
garage. The line of garages seem to go for miles, every one painted in the team colour. It is
surprising how busy the track is on this windy Friday morning as it is not open to the public until
after Christmas when the season officially begins, yet there are people everywhere. After a few
minutes of walking, I spot the specific green colour that represents the DFT karting team. Just
as I let a member of the team know why I am here, Marliya appears with her headphones in,
slowly swaying to the music playing in her ears. As she took out her headphone, she met my
eyeline and we shook hands, her smile gleamed as I introduced myself. As she was explaining
her early start this morning, her phone rang; she apologised profusely and quickly took the call.
As she was on the phone, I began to look around the garage and take in everything around me.
Behind me were 8 helmets with Marliya’s number on them, I didn’t know a driver needed that
many helmets. In the corner of the garage were stacks and stacks of tires, taller than me, a 5
foot 7 woman; as well as about 10 toolboxes crammed full to the brim with tools. As I take
everything in around me, a car zoomed past the garage very quickly, so quickly in fact that
I could only make out the black colour of the car and nothing else. Marliya appears again from
the back of the garage, apologising again. Two mechanics slide 2 ‘tire high’ stacks of tires for
Marliya and I to sit on and place them just in front of Marliya’s car. A mechanic throws a bottle of
water at Marliya to which she confidently catches it before taking a sip as I begin the interview.
“My dad or my ‘dad-ager’ was always obsessed with motorsport and cars, even when he was
little. He could talk about Jenson Button and Martin Brundle for months on end if you let him. As
his only child, I guess it was expected that I would be as obsessed with cars as he would be. He
wanted to get me into karting, there’s a picture of me on our kitchen wall in the family home on
my very first kart at 3 years old.” She said, showing me the photograph on her phone. “My dad
and I travel up and down the country for the sport near enough every weekend when the season
begins. We make it really fun and he loves watching me on the track, but as a manager he has
to be harsh sometimes too.”
Marliya has been involved in karting for 10 years, starting off in junior karting and working her
way to where she is now. She has been lucky enough to have been sponsored by over 20
companies so far during her time as a karter. She said: “Sponsors look for talent and dedication,
they don’t want to sponsor a team or a driver who is known to crash or DNF most races. As a
woman in the sport, you are already at a big disadvantage when it comes to sponsors, as most
will favour a man. That is a massive reason to why more women do not compete; sponsors are
vital to a career in motorsport, so if you struggle to get a sponsor, its over before it has even
started really.”
A statistic from ‘Formula Woman’ shows that 13% of participation in Karting is
from girls and it drops to 7% in Formula and GT racing. The report also revealed a gender
performance gap. Women are not progressing at the same rate as their male counterparts and
currently represent 4% at the top flights of motorsport.
She said: “I was extremely lucky with my
sponsors, they loved the team and my dad was able to put in a good word for me too. If I was
going to give someone advice about getting a sponsor I would say that sometimes it is just luck
of the draw; it depends on if they like the team, if they are a company that would choose the
bigger teams rather than choosing on talent. All you can do is be yourself and drive your best.”
Marliya can spend weeks on end away from her home, travelling up and down the country.
This is just part of life as a karting driver. She said: “It can be difficult sometimes; as much as I am
grateful and enjoy my job, I love being at home. But I get to see so many amazing places that I
probably would not have gone to if it had not been for racing. I’ve been up into the beautiful
highlands of Scotland and I’ve been all the way down to Dover and Plymouth. I hope to work my
way up to Indycar to compete in the USA, that would be my dream.” Like formula 1, Indycar has
a low rate of women competitors. In 2023, Indy500 had only one woman competing; the first
woman since 1977. “The fact that I am lucky enough to do this with my dad means a lot; some
racers don’t see their parents for weeks and weeks, I am truly one of the lucky ones.”
“My biggest inspiration in motorsport is Daniel Ricciardo; I have met him before and he is so
down to earth and kind. He is also an amazing racer and I love to watch him in Formula 1 and I
have had the pleasure of watching him work up to where he is now. Second to him, Clement
Novalak; once again an amazing F2 driver and someone I aspire to be like.”
In motorsport, ‘The W series’ is where we used to find the most women competing in the sport.
The W series was an all female, single-seater racing championship that was held in 2019, 2021
and 2022. It was planned to go ahead during the 2023 season but the series was liquidated due
to low sponsorship. When asked about women’s involvement in motorsport, Marliya said:
“Motorsport isn’t, and never has been, a truly inclusive sport for women. As a woman who has
managed to work their way up to this point, it’s disappointing that we don’t have those female
role models for inspiration. When I was younger and watching F1, I couldn’t see anyone like me.
If we don’t improve this, even fewer women will be interested in motorsport. Think about this;
you watch F1, you see 10 male team principals, 20 male drivers on the grid, 70 plus male
mechanics and engineers in the pitlane. If you are a young girl, you can’t even envision yourself
in one of those jobs because there is no one representing you. It honestly makes me frustrated,
but I hope that by doing the job that I do, I am helping to improve this and make younger girls
see that there is a place for women in motorsport. I hope that there are things and programmes
in the works for women to get into both the bigger and the smaller series’, programmes like
‘Drive to Survive’ have brought in a whole new fanbase of both men and women, and we would
be silly not to act on that and get people involved.
