Abbi Fulbrook is a 17-year-old motorsport content creator best known for her TikTok and YouTube videos, documenting her journey into the motorsport world. Paige, Catherine, and Savannah sat down with Abbi last week to discuss her inspirations, aspirations, and what advice she’d give to girls just like her.
Abbi initially got into motorsport through her racer dad, but for many years failed to see it as a possible career path, due to the lack of female representation in the sport. However, she was soon heavily inspired by Claire Williams, who fans will know as the daughter of Frank Williams and a team principle in her own right. Despite an unfortunate end to Claire’s run with the Williams, Abbi still sees her as a role model, being able to balance running a family and a Formula 1 team.
Our team and Abbi both agree that role models are essential for the sport to move forwards. Claire Williams, along with other stand-out individuals, are breaking the mould of what is expected of women in motorsport. One such individual is Hannah Schmitz, the Senior Strategy Engineer at Red Bull Racing, who was responsible for leading Verstappen to victory in Brazil in 2019. Seeing women in such influential positions within teams will certainly inspire the next generation of girls to aim higher than they once believed.
Unfortunately for the 17-year-old, Abbi has already received her fair share of hate from so called fellow motorsport fans. She admits when she first started creating content, she may have gone about it the wrong way, creating videos that focused mainly on the drivers. This of course led internet trolls to comment that Abbi was only watching motorsport to stare at the drivers. Even after Abbi began to create content on her own aspirations, the trolls persisted, doubting her ability to achieve her dreams.
Abbi claims that the hate rarely affects her and knows it all comes from stereotypes that are hard to shift. She also jokes that to get hate, you must be pretty influential in the first place, so she must be doing something right!
Nevertheless, she wants her platform to be a safe space for motorsport fans and aspires to be a role model for girls just like her. She recently completed an Extended Project Qualification, examining the role of women in motorsport, and it cemented her view that she wanted to create a community of girls and women supporting each other in their careers and journeys.
Abbi is already a huge influence in the online motorsport community. Her promotion of the FIA Girls on Track Facebook group late last year led to a huge influx of new members to the online community. The FIA Girls on Track group is platform for women to share their stories and opportunities. Grid Girls itself was formed from this group and many of our team have Abbi to thank for bringing us together.
So, what’s next for Abbi Fulbrook? She’s currently studying for her A-Levels and plans to study Law at the University of Southampton. From there she hopes to break into the world of motorsport in the legal side of things: yet another avenue that lacks female representation. Legal personnel within motorsport teams are behind the team disputes and regulation protests we see shake the paddock throughout the F1 season, such as the Racing Point “pink Mercedes” debacle in 2020. We all wish Abbi the best of luck and hope to see her right in the middle of it in the future!
You can follow Abbi on Tiktok at @abz_01.04 or subscribe to her YouTube channel to keep up to date with her journey!
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