I never let my gender define me but in my whole driving career I only ever did one interview not being asked about being a female.
It is a hugely embarrassing situation to find myself in, I'm a professional driver and to be caught speeding and to have my licence taken away for speeding, it would have an effect on my reputation.
I loved the speed of go-karting, but didn't have a lot of natural talent. The first time I went out on the track I found it scary; other karts were flying past and bumping into me.
An all-women championship is giving up on the mission of eventually making girls compete on a high level and against the boys in Formula One. It is undermining what girls are able to achieve.
One of the whole reasons for starting my initiative, Dare to be Different, is about getting more girls interested in motorsport and that's everywhere, not just driving on track but creating a network where they have the support around them.
Every racing driver in the world dreams of making it to F1, there's only 22 spots on the grid.
If I was to turn around now and say that motorsport should be segregated, then my whole career would have been for nothing. Every result that I have achieved on my own would stand for nothing, if I couldn't compete against male drivers.
I hated reading - I was not a 'good kid' - but I was determined when I put my mind to something.
If there's 10,000 little boys racing around the world and there's only 10 girls, best case 100, the numbers are stacked massively against us. If you don't increase the talent pool of young girls, you're not going to get the best drivers at the top.
Coming to new environments, people look at you and think, 'what's this blonde lady doing, she thinks she can drive a racing car.' But you work hard, keep your head down and show that you're actually capable.
There's no prize for being the best woman.
I was always an adrenaline junkie, always competitive, always a speed freak.
Racing's in my blood. My mum met my dad when she went to buy her first motorbike in his shop.
When you're eight, you're not thinking about the future. But karting was always the big passion, the big love.
Ultimately, a women's only championship is not going to get more females into motorsport as a whole.
I never really thought about being a woman in a man's world. Then at the World Championships in 2000 I finished 15th. I was called on to the podium just for being a woman, and I realised things were going to be different.
I never thought of myself as a role model, but I've had so many messages from girls, women, mothers saying I was an inspiration.
We need to get more women into sport, whether that's young girls in karting or off the track. The more we get into sport, the more you are going to get rising to the top of the sport.
You need to get female talent which is good enough to compete at the right level because no team is going to compromise on on-track performance just to tick a gender box.
If you are a successful woman, that can inspire the next generation.
