Convinced that her path would lead her to a career in the performing arts, Erin Grocott would have never imagined that she would work in the world’s highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater cars. She spent much of her early life as a dancer, performing in various styles from ballet to jazz to tap. She had planned to pursue it further, participating in a General Certificate of Secondary Education exam for dance. However, pressure from others grew on her, as the desire was for her to pursue dance at university. However, this wasn’t what she wanted.
Grocott wasn’t very interested in F1 as a child, despite her father’s love for motorsports. However, this started to change when she was around 13 years old. A family friend worked in what is now known as Formula 3, and she attended an event with her father, the sport started to capture her interest as she walked through the team garages.
“Me as a young teenage girl purely wanted to go to look at the drivers. I know, that’s bad, but it’s true.”
As her interest grew, she started attending more auto races with her father, the family friend taking notice and offering her a motorsports class that he taught at a local college. Though she was not initially interested, this changed around a month before college had started.
“They’ve got an hour to fix this broken car, and the feeling you could see in their faces once they’ve got the car back out on track, I was like, I want to feel that.”
Before taking the course, Erin had never worked on a car before. She learned about the basics of vehicle mechanics and motorsports skills, a blend of practical and technical knowledge. She chose the mechanic route over becoming an engineer because she enjoyed the practical aspect more than the theory, although the technical knowledge she had gave her an advantage in the field.
“When you have an engineer asking you to do certain mechanical tasks, you can have an understanding of the background as to why they’re asking me to do that change.”
Grocott never saw women working as engineers or mechanics when she watched races with her father. This was the case as she worked in a variety of series as a freelancer, such as the W series and Asian Formula 3, between 2017 and 2021.
“When I did W Series, which is obviously the all-female championship, there were only two female mechanics, me being one of them.”
The British Touring Car was a series where there were relatively more women, but it was also a place where the behavior of her male colleagues almost pushed Grocott out of the sport entirely. In 2020, male coworkers made inappropriate comments and ‘inappropriate touching’ as they walked by Grocott.
“I really struggled in junior formulas in England, and they’re like, ‘Why don’t you look like [how you do outside work] when you come to work?’ Honestly, at that point, I was ready to stop. It really, really got to me, really upset me.”
During Christmas, she realized how much she enjoyed working in motorsports whilst bagging groceries and stocking shelves at her local supermarket. She was close to finishing her degree in motorsport mechanics and decided to continue on her motorsports journey despite the comments made by some of her male colleagues.
“Why on Earth should I let some stupid little boys stop me from doing what I like and what I want to do?”
Her breakthrough came when she was working in Dubai in the Asian Formula 3 series. Having interviewed with the Williams Racing F1 team before the Christmas holidays in 2020, and whilst in the Dubai hotel room, she got the call that would change her life.
“How soon can you start?”
By the end of February of the next year, she had picked up the keys to a new apartment that her parents had found and spent a few days with them before moving closer to Williams Racing.
She started in the factory, also working on her dissertation, which was a major time commitment before she arrived at her first race trackside in Saudi Arabia in December of that year. However, it came with its challenges.
“Being in Saudi was not only daunting because it was my first event, but also pretty terrifying that I’m going to a country that doesn’t accept women equally as they do men, so it wasn’t the experience I hoped it would be purely because of the country,” she said. “I felt very on edge all of the time. There was constant staring whilst walking into the track, while going out for dinner in the evenings, and that definitely made me feel really, really uncomfortable.”
She didn’t want to return to the country, and her boss agreed that she should not have to work where she felt unsafe.
“But we shouldn’t have to feel like that,” Grocott said. “I shouldn’t have to feel unsafe going to a country and not feel like I can do my job properly because I feel like I’m in danger.”
She acknowledges the other troubling stories she has heard of other local men and F1 women at other tracks. “It’s a real, real shame that we still go to these countries that have such poor, not even just issues against women, but just such poor human rights in general,” she said. She hasn’t endured “negative experiences” similar to those in her past since joining Williams Racing, finding a “much more supportive group of people.”
She remembers watching F1 with her father and seeing the mechanics in the garage, suits on, and helmets in hand. Many years later, she stands in their place and continues to advocate for women in motorsport.
Citations:
Coleman, Madeline. "F1 Mechanic Erin Grocott Wanted to Be a Dancer — then She Fell for Motorsports." The Athletic, 1 June 2023, www.nytimes.com/athletic/4568825/2023/06/01/f1-mechanic-erin-grocott-williams/.
"Introducing Erin Grocott, Component Assembly Technician at Williams Racing." Instagram, www.instagram.com/williamsracing/reel/DCRWz2kNOdl/introducing-erin-grocott-component-assembly-technician-at-williams-racinggo-behi/.
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