Winter Olympics great recalls dream F1 switch: 'You can't get pregnant'

Winter Olympics great Lindsey Vonn has recalled the time she nearly pursued a career in F1, and was told she couldn't get pregnant.

Vonn, who is returning to the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina for the first time since PyeongChang 2018, has been a Red Bull-backed athlete during his career, which included a gold medal in downhill skiing at the Vancouver 2010 games.

The American, who is competing in Italy with a ruptured ACL in her knee following a crash in her final race pre-Olympics, has explained how a career change was mapped out for her, but that the decision included the instructions "not to get pregnant", something she did not want to follow.

"I drove in Spielberg in Austria on the Formula 1 track," Vonn explained back in 2020 during her 'retirement' from the winter games in a conversation on the 'In Depth with Graham Bensinger' channel. 

"Another time, on the autobahn, we went 130mph. I was with [three-time alpine skiing Olympic champion] Maria Hofl-Reisch, driving her Audi R8. 

"There’s a good stretch south of Munich where there’s no speed limit, and she was like 'Come on, Lindsey, you’re not going very fast.' Of course, I then had to show her what was up!

"But on the racing track, we went much faster. I had a tendency to go a little too fast on the corners, and I would spin out. 

“I was thinking about switching to Formula 1 and trying to be a driver, but I couldn’t because they wanted me to fully commit to three years, and they were like: 'You can’t get pregnant, and you can’t do anything.'

 "And I’m like: 'I don’t know if I really want to do that.'

"That would have been something that was very exciting for the person I am."