One of the things to particularly love about ladies, is their ability to “multi-task,” something most men are not very good at, or at all. Women can have babies, manage households, manage husbands, drive racing cars, fly aeroplanes and run countries. Of course, men can do most of those—pregnancy excepted—but not all at the same time. I should qualify this by stating that I am aware that not all women are ladies, but for the sake of this exercise we will go with the ladies. Mostly.
When I board an aircraft, something I tend to do fairly regularly, I am always relieved when we get to the “captain speaking” bit of the early announcements from the cockpit and it is a lady identifying herself as the Captain. I know then that the aircraft will be flown absolutely by the book, whereas I view male pilots as closet “zoomers.” Apologies to all male pilots but you do have that inbuilt zoomer mentality, especially if you came to the cockpit via military fighter flying, where zooming is compulsory! I am comforted by the thought that the lady will execute all her checks with utmost efficiency and manage the flight to perfection.
As this is a racing magazine, we must look at ladies behind the wheel, where doing it by the book is not always the fastest way. Sometimes a bit of zoomer mentality is needed to get the ultimate speed, and maybe this explains why we are still awaiting a lady Indy 500 winner and a lady F1 World Champion. We have seen some very fast ladies in Indycar, in particular Janet Guthrie and Danica Patrick, as well as Lyn St.James. Anyone who can outqualify Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell, in an identical car as Lyn did, is obviously well up on the pace. The only lady to win a Formula One race is Desire Wilson, although a non-championship event, but I am positive that given the right drive Des could have done equally well in the World Championship.
We know there are many other ladies who have been successful at so many levels of motor sport, all of them very competitive people who are happy to take on men on equal terms. I know about that—I was lucky enough to marry one of them![pullquote]
“We know there have been many other ladies who have been successful at so many levels of motor sport, all of them very competitive people who are happy to take on men on equal terms. I know about that—I was lucky enough to marry one of them!”
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I hate to introduce a bit of discord here, but there was in long ago history, a most awful woman (she should probably have been categorized as something else) who was quite the successful driver, Violette Morris. Allegedly born into nobility in France, Morris excelled in all sports, especially boxing, but very much left “her” mark on motor racing as well. In order to help her sporting career she had a double mastectomy, and was ostracized by society for her very openly lesbian lifestyle. Her “legacy,” which did so much harm to the lady racing driver cause, was that she became very involved in the Nazi war machine and was eventually known as the “Nazi Hyena” as she indulged herself in the extreme torture of SOE agents. Fortunately, this made her a target and one day she arrived at a crossroads where the French Resistance, supposedly with British help, were waiting and Morris, along with two other collaborators, died in a massive hail of bullets. Justice done.
Moving away from that aberration and back onto the very nice and successful ladies we have the pre-WWII lady drivers Elisabeth Junek, Kay Petre, Gwenda Hawkes and, thanks to Miranda Seymour’s excellent book Bugatti Queen, we now know much more about Hellé Nice. That her later life was blighted by accusations, probably false, from Louis Chiron suggesting Hellé had been a Nazi collaborator during WWII was tragic. Had she spurned Chiron’s advances at some time?
Recently, Rosemary Smith, well-known rally and racing driver, had a drive in a Formula One car, as part of a Renault promotion. Obviously, it couldn’t be in a current car, but any Formula One machine is difficult to drive so it is most impressive that Rosemary, who admits to about 80 years of age, was able to handle it. Unfortunately, some of the armchair seated, keyboard driving, MCP’s who inhabit social media chose to denigrate the event and her performance. Rosemary can be consoled by the thought that few of the critics would even be able to get the car out of the pitlane!
We also have ladies at the top of Formula One teams. The highest profile one is Claire Williams, now Deputy Team Director to her father Sir Frank. Until very recently, the Sauber F1 team was also headed by a lady, Monisha Kaltenborn, who was installed by Peter Sauber when he took his former team back from BMW.
Lady drivers in the F1 World Championship are few and far between, the first having been Maria Teresa de Filippis who raced a Maserati 250F in 1958, but since then only one female has gained a regular F1 drive, Lella Lombardi. Susy Wolff (nee Stoddart) came close when she was selected as the Williams reserve driver, and did the first practice at the 2014 British Grand Prix. Attempts by Davina Galica and Giovana Amati to qualify for a WC race were thwarted by uncompetitive machinery.
Lady rally drivers achieved rather more success at the top, Pat Moss and Michele Mouton being two of the very best.
Continuing on the lady multi-tasking theme, we have quite a number in the organizational side of racing, including that lovely English lady Gill Campbell, Senior Vice President of Events at Laguna Seca, and Lesa France Kennedy at NASCAR.
So watch out gentlemen. One day a lady will win the Indy 500, and the World Championship. I hope I am here to see it.
