She might be the most prominent woman in Formula One, but Claire Williams is accustomed to feeling like the odd one out. At times, there can be as much testosterone sloshing around this sport as petrol. “Too many dudes,” as Lewis Hamilton once pithily put it.

For Williams, at the helm of an iconic British engineering company as it navigates a period of grave struggle, it is an imbalance that requires urgent redress.

“I notice that I am invariably the only woman in the room,” she says. “You look at F1 and you just see a swathe of men.

"It can be very off-putting. It can also be somewhat intimidating, because the place is dominated by men with a very large presence, who want to have their voices heard. I don’t want to be the only woman here.

“There is evidence to show that if you get a group of men in one room, the testosterone level increases dramatically, and their heart rates and blood pressure go up. It heightens all those natural male qualities of competitiveness.”