Women in Formula One -
a brief history
Have women actually tried and failed, or have women never attempted to race in Formula 1? Are there regulations actually prohibiting women? Is it question of endurance, strength, speed, hormones?!
In this era of political correctness, women's rights, and open-mindedness, I want to remind you of a time when minds weren't so open.
The topic “women and Formula 1″ emerged again previous the Japanese Grand Prix after Force India driver Vitantonio Liuzzi’s statement “Suzuka is a real man’s circuit.” While the team smoothed Vitantonio Liuzzi’s statement with “he’s always entertaining”, the female fans were running up in arms about it. From Teams’ Facebook page: “If it’s a real man’s circuit what’s he doing there??”
Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a race in a major international openwheeled singleseater category. Patrick won the third round of the Indy Car series at Motegi in Japan 2008. She also led the 2005 Indianapolis 500, before she lost position few laps before end of the race, finally finishing fourth.
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Sarah Fisher after qualifying 2007 in Indianapolis 500 |
The only female drivers in recent history that did peak the interest of some Formula One teams and principals were Sarah Fisher, Sarah Kavanagh, Katherine Legge and Danica Patrick. But as of now, none of these drivers will be in or anywhere near Formula One and the possibility of any of them actually getting a drive seem very unlikely. So far in the 21st century, Sara Fisher made history for McLaren when she tested in to one of their cars back in 2002 at the time of the US GP, becoming the first woman in 10 years to have driven a Formula 1 car.
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Katherine Legge during F1 test For Minardi |
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Milka Duno from Venezuela |
At the time, Martin Whitmarsh remarked that at that point in time they had never had a female in one of their cars so guessed it was about time. The only other time so far has been in November 2005, when Katherine Legge tested for Minardi for Paul Stoddart at Vallelunga.
But F1 has had precious few female drivers, and there’s no sign one might arrive in the sport any time soon.
So… why? They certainly are allowed, and indeed one has actually scored a world championship point and one actually win race with Formula 1 car.
But, there are many background reasons for this. Girls and women are usually less mechanically aware and good feedback from driver is more and more important. Young girls are much less likely to take an interest in driving at the age of eighth or so, when the champions of Motorsport start racing in karts. When women do get involved in Motorsport potential sponsors treat them less seriously than their male counterparts, and there is precious little money to go around at the lower levels. In some nations, religion and culture are also a factor.
It’s not as if there aren’t women racers in other categories. Women have been involved in motor racing from its inception.
Dorothy Levitt was an early motor racing pioneer and the first flag bearer for women when she competed in a race in 1903. In 1906 she broke the Ladies Land Speed Record, and several years before the invention of the rear-view mirror she advocated women should "carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving" so they may "hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic". She also won speedboat races and was one of the first women to qualify as a pilot - and in 1903 was one of the first to be fined for speeding when pulled over by police in London's Hyde Park. She was briefly banned from Brookland track when it opened in 1907, officials arguing that as there were no female jockeys it would be wrong to have female drivers.
The romantic novelist Barbara Cartland was the force behind some of the earliest female drivers at the Brooklands track in the 1920s.
Elizabeth Junek husband was a Bugatti driver in the 1920s. Initially she was his mechanic, when he found gear changes a struggle because of a war injury, she took over and made her professional debut in 1923. By 1926, she was racing men on equal terms. At the gruelling Targa Florio race she was fourth when she crashed out, but her skills and stamina earned her the respect of her contemporaries. Later in the year she won a two-litre sports-car class at the Nurburgring, becoming the only woman in history to win this race. At the 1928 Targa Florio she actually led until near the end, finally finishing fifth but beating many of the leading drivers of the time. But at that year's German Grand Prix tragedy struck. She was sharing the drive with her husband and he had just taken over when he crashed and was killed. The devastated Junková retired immediately, sold all her cars, and went travelling. Ettore Bugatti gave her a new touring car for her journey, cannily employing her as an agent for his business in Asia.
Kay Petre got involved in driving in her 20s. In 1933 she bought her first racing car - a two-litre Bugatti - and was soon making her mark at Brooklands. 1934 she copeted in the Le Mans 24 Hour race partnered by Dorothy Champney. She was opsesed with speed records. In a massive 10.5-litre Delage, the diminutive Petre was almost swamped - years later it emerged she had wooden blocks attached to the pedals to enable her to reach them. In 1934 she set a circuit record when she clocked 129.58mph on a lap. Ten months later her rival Gwenda Stewart broke it. Petre immediately went out and smashed Stewart's time. Three days after that Stewart again drove faster, and this time Petre admitted defeat. But at Brooklands in 1937 she crashed, suffering serious head injuries and was left in a coma. In 1938 she made a final appearance at her beloved Brooklands, cheered to the rafters by the crowd, but by her own admission her nerve had gone. She never raced again, but did take up rallying, initially as a navigator but later as a driver.
The legendary Janet Guthrie is the first woman to earn a starting spot in the Indianapolis 500 (1977) and the Daytona 500 (1977), where she was Top Rookie. Her ninth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 (1978), with a team she formed and managed herself, was the best by a woman until 2005. She set fastest time of day at Indianapolis on May 7 and May 22, 1977. She was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2006. "I think she's done a hell of a job," Mario Andretti said at the 1977 Indy 500. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. I've seen many guys who had much more trouble with Indy than she has had, from the standpoint of belonging on the course. Anyone who says she doesn't belong here, just feels threatened."
Michelle Mouton raced and won at the very highest levels of the World Rally Championship in the mid 80's during the exciting and wild days of Group B.
Ellen Lohr was a front runner in the newly fabled Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) touring car series of the mid 90's, and women like Australian Drag Racing Champion Rachelle Splatt, three times Australian Rally Co-driver's Champion Coral Taylor, emerging Formula Ford talent Leanne Ferrier, talented GT-Production racers Paula Elstrek, Melinda Price and V8 Supercar's Kerryn Brewer and Amber Anderson (not only a race car driver but also as a lawyer, an aerobatics aircraft pilot, television reporter and the Official V8 Supercar Safety Car Driver).
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Susie Stoddart, woman racer in DTM |
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Vanina Ickx, woman racer in DTM with Audi team |
Looking further a field to other motor racing series, there are still not that many women drivers. And if I had to give the first names that come into my mind, it would be Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher, Katherine Legge and Milka Duno in Indycar. Then there is Keiko Ihara racing in British F3, Susie Stoddart and Katherine Legge alongside Vanina Ickx in DTM, Fiona Leggate in the BTCC, in American Pro Stock is rising star Erica Enders.
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Steffi Halm, Porsche Carrera cup |
In other formulae’s there’s Tiffany Chittenden, Jodie Hemming and Pippa Mann in Formula Renault, Steffi Halm in Porsche Carrera cup. Schoolgirl Sarah Moore has left the boys trailing in her wake by racing into the history books as the first female to ever win a British national level car racing championship and she’s only 15 (The championship is a racing series for 13-17-year-olds and is part of the prestigious TOCA British Touring Car Championship package).
Some people think that women don’t have the physical strength to compete in top flight motor racing. I think Patrick’s success in Indy Cars challenges that view. Experts in physiology and psychology now widely accept that the strengths needed to drive an F1 car are certainly attainable by women. Michael Schumacher admits that physical difference is not the issue. "The reasons are cultural," he said recently. "There are too few women coming up the ranks." To a certain extent he is right, but that argument is becoming an easy excuse.
According to Doctor Oskar Handow science is intensively researching on this subject. Results of some studies say that sport women are certainly capable of racing in Formula 1. Neck muscles, so important in high g envirolement are easy trained to be strong enough, and level of fitness helps maintain level of concentration longer under adverse physical conditions, like the cockpit of a Formula One car for two hours.
Men generally are more physically able and generally have better spatial awareness. But there are exceptions to the rule on both sides—there are women who can lift cars and men who have such terrible spatial awareness that they cannot even parallel park.
We can dismiss fitness and awareness as the reason there are no women in Formula 1. There is no reason why women can't reach that level of fitness and indeed many do, in other sports. They on average eat healthier. But they are doing sports for different reasons than men do. For woman the aspect of fun comes to the fore and sweating is regarded as an unpleasant side effect. Their appearance and figure are important to them. Communicative aspect should be added. So physical and social sport motives are pursued more vigorously. Woman is more capable of multitasking, and if you look at new steering wheel of F1, that is an advantage. What is most important in Formula One is concentration, and men are not better than women in this regard.
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Fiona Leggate in the BTCC |
Men tend towards to consider sport as a competition to let their sudorific ambitions out. The performance-oriented thinking is in high gear. Also psychological motives and coping with stress is stronger at the male side. Fact is that male respiratory volume is greater and the blood circulation is working more efficiently. In addition, the blood volume per kg body weight, the red blood cells, are higher. As a result the supply of oxygen and nutrients for the more complex metabolism are assured. Thus, men have higher nutritional requirements and need more calories. And as we can see after introduction of new buttons on the steering wheel after 2011 (adjustable wing and KERS), a lot of drivers complained that this is too much to bear with.
I also believe that there is a second reason. While watching Top Gear a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Clarkson, although hardly one of the most impartial of people, made a very good point, which seems to be unfair but true: "The second a woman puts on a pair of racing overalls she is treated like a sex object."
In spite of everything, we already had a chance to watch women in Formula 1 in the past. Looking back over the years, there have only ever been 5 female drivers in Formula 1 and competed between 1958 and the early Nineties but they all drove incomparably bad cars. These women are Maria Teresa de Filippis, Divina Galcia, Lella Lombardi, Desiré Wilson and Giovanni Amati. Katherine Legge attended a test and Sarah Fisher got at least a few demo laps. The only Formula One Grand Prix in which multiple female racers were entered was the 1976 Formula One British Grand Prix with Lella Lombardi and Divina Galica.
So, who are these “extraordinary” women in Formula 1?
Name |
Seasons |
Teams |
Starts |
Pole posit |
Podiums |
Wins |
Championships |
Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Maria Teresa de Filippis |
1958 - 1959 |
Maserati, Behra-Porsche |
5 (3) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Lella Lombardi |
1974 - 1976 |
March, RAM, Williams |
17 (12) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0.5 |
Divina Galica |
1976 - 1978 |
Surtees, Hesketh |
3 (0) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
— |
Desiré Wilson |
1979 |
Williams |
1 (0) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
— |
Giovanna Amati |
1992 |
Brabham |
3 (0) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
— |
Maria Teresa de Filippis
She was F1's first lady Formula One racing driver. Maria Teresa de Filippis was born 11 November 1926 in Naples, Italy.
She started racing at the age of 22 when her brothers taunted her she could not drive fast. Within six years she was a works driver for Maserati and in 1958, driving the Maserati Juan Manuel Fangio had won his fifth world title with the previous year, became the first women to compete in a Formula One grand prix.
In the early fifties Maria Teresa was very successful in national racing, first scoring some fine results for OSCA with her own Maserati 250F.
Maria started on the Formula 1 grid in May 1958, but she scored no championship points even though she took part in five races in 1958 and 1959 seasons with her own Maserati and then Porsche.
She participated in five World Championship Grand Prix, debuting on 18 May 1958. With the help of her boy-friend Luigi Musso (Formula 1 driver, killed in an accident during the 1958 French Grand Prix at Reims, France) she entered this year four Grand Prix races with her machine, and her best result being a 10th at Spa, two laps down. 
Same year Maria tried but did not qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix. She did however start the Belgian, Portuguese and Italian Grand Prix. Her highest qualifying position being 15th for the Portuguese race, in which she retired.
In 1959 she signed up with (Formula 1 driver) Jean Behra's own Behra-Porsche team for 1959 but then retired from the sport after Behra was killed at the dangerous Avus motorway track at Berlin. First and her only race 1959 was Monaco and she once again tried but failed to qualify for this event.
She also participated in several non-Championship Formula One races.
Maria Grazia "Lella" Lombardi
It’s not until you get to Lella Lombardi, that you find one, and for now only woman who did score points. Legend has it she started showing an interest in racing after being driven to hospital at speed after an accident playing sport. Racing from 1974 to 1976, Lella became the only woman to ever finish top 6 at a GP, subsequently finishing 21st in the WDC championship that year. Lella is also the female driver with the most entries in Formula One, entering 17 races during the 1974 to 1976 season debuting on July 20, 1974. Her best finish being the 6th place she achieved in Spain. Her best qualifying position was 17th in Belgium in 1975. She scored a total of 0.5 championship points, and is the only female Formula One driver in history to have a top 6 finish in a World Championship race, at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. Half points were awarded for this race due to a shortened race distance, hence Lombardi received half a point instead of the usual one point. This means that she is not only the sole female driver to score points in Formula One, but is the only ever driver with that career total.
Maria Grazia "Lella" Lombardi was born in Frugarolo, Alessandria, March 26, 1941 and died in Milan, March 3, 1992. She died of cancer aged 50. Within her family, no one was interested in motor racing, nor driving on public roads. Actually, the fastest vehicle they owned was a ten-speed bicycle...
One day Lella met a young man, who as it later turned out, was a racing driver. From that day on, she followed him wherever he went. She was in charge of the tires, changed the spark plugs, and timed the laps. On one occasion the guy entered his Alfa Romeo for a rally. Lella was his co-driver. She enjoyed that 'high-speed weekend', and persuaded her friend to swap places for the next event. When Lella appeared in the driving seat, the other drivers were just smiling... Lella was very upset and put all her anger into her driving. She won the debut race! After that tremendous success, with the help from an Italian company, she was given the chance to drive a works Alfa Romeo in the Italian Touring Car Championship.
In the beginning, her results were modest, but she finished in third position at the Palermo event. The Alfa Romeo was to be followed by a BMW and later Lella's attention turned to single-seater racing. Her biggest success came in the Ford Mexico Championship in which she became the 1973 champion. The next year she stepped up to Formula 5000, and was racing in the Shellsport championship. That year marked her first appearance in Formula One.
After performing well in Formula 3 and Formula 5000 in the early 1970s, Lombardi entered Formula One in 1974 with Allied Polymer Group team with an old privately-entered Brabham, but it was with March next year that she raced a full season in 1975. It was that year that Lella drove a March 751 to sixth place in race at Montjuich Park in Barcelona for Spanish GP, scoring 0.5 points, as the race was stopped early following a serious crash.
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Lella Lombardi driving March 751 at Montjuich Park in Barcelona |
She then had a one-off drive for Williams before a short-lived and unsuccessful partnership with RAM Racing, driving another Brabham. Lella Lombardi had also started in NASCAR driving in the Firecracker 400 NASCAR race at the Daytona International Speedway in 1977. Interestingly enough, there were no less than three female drivers in the field that included American Janet Guthrie and Belgian Christine Beckers.
Lombardi later raced in sports cars with some success.
Divina Mary Galica
Divina Mary Galica (born 13 August 1944, in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, Great Britain) had a brief dalliance with Formula 1 at 1976 and 1978 and entered only 3 races. She did not qualify for any of these races. The closest she came was being 2.59 seconds slower than the last placed qualifier.
She was always speed junky and by age 20, she participated in her first Olympic games at Innsbruck in 1964, competing in downhill skiing and the slalom. She also participated in the next two winter Olympics, at Grenoble in 1968 and Sapporo in 1972. On both occasions Galica was captain of the British Women’s Olympic Ski Team, and finished in the top-ten in the Giant Slalom. Aside from Olympic competition, Divina achieved two World Cup podium finishes in the downhill events, taking third place at both the Badgastein and Chamonix rounds in 1968. Galica also held the British women's downhill skiing speed record at 201 Kmh. She eventually took up motorsport as a second career, initially racing karts, moving into Formula Two and Formula One before finding success in sports cars and trucks.
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The wreckage of Paul Torchy's two-litre 2LCV Delage GP in which he was killed 1925 |
Unlucky No.13 is a very unusual starting number and the FIA and several other race organizers conspicuously avoid appointment of the number. In fact, the history of excluding No.13 as an entry number goes back to 1925 when Paul Torchy was killed and 1926, when Giulio Masetti died in a Maserati carrying the No.13 when taking part in the Targa Florio. Since then, the number is not issued by organizers of motorsport events, even though a driver has the right to request it. This is exactly what Divina Galica did when entering the British Shellsport International Group 8 series driving a Surtees TS16 Formula One car. Galica did manage to take third place at the Brands Hatch and second place at the Donington Park rounds.
Galica only entered 3 of F1 World Championship events, one in 1976 and two in 1978.
After promising showings in Shellsport International series, Whiting decided to enter Galica for 1976 year's British F1 Grand Prix, using their Surtees TS16. This year Galica had the honor of reintroducing the same dreaded No.13 to the F1 Grand Prix world. Number 13 was issued to F1 racer only once before: to Moises Solana at his home Mexico GP of 1963. Unlucky 13 also proved for Galica, as she failed to qualify for the race. Whiting acquired a second-hand Surtees TS19 for Galica to use in the British F1 event. The Whiting team lacked the technical expertise required to properly set the car up for each race, and Galica was often hindered by poorly adjusted machinery. Whiting managed to secure sponsorship from Olympus Cameras part way through the season, as prior to this the whole team had been run on a budget of only £10,000 for the entire season.
Two entries in the 1978 Hesketh team, on its back feet after it was cut loose by Lord Hesketh and Harvey Postlethwaite, remain her most serious attempts. Hesketh Racing's works driver Rupert Keegan had taken part in a couple of rounds of the British domestic series in 1977, and at the start of the 1978 Formula One season Hesketh offered Divina Galica the opportunity to replace him in the team's Hesketh 308E car. Galica took the Olympus sponsorship with her, replacing Hesketh's previous Penthouse sponsorship, but she failed to qualify for both ’78 events she take part of, Argentine and Brasil GP, first and second event of the season.
Following the second failure in Formula 1, she returned to the British Championship and her trusted TS19 to enter the fledgling Aurora championship, and mid-way Galica took second place at the Zandvoort round. Then she swapped the Surtees TS19 for an upgraded ex-works McLaren M23 car with which she returned to the series, only to take a poor seventh at Thruxton in September.
After her driving career, in the nineties she went back to embrace her old love as an alpine skier, represented Great Britain at the 1992 Winter Olympics, this time in the speed skiing event.
Aside from a limited number of outings in single-seater cars, Galica switched her attention to the Thundersports S2000 sports car class, taking a number of top ten finishes, and truck racing. Galica became a racing instructor with Skip Barber Racing Schools, rising to become senior vice president of Skip Barber Racing, managing both its driving school and racing series. In 2005, at the Mont-Tremblant weekend of the Skip Barber Race Series, Galica announced she was leaving Skip Barber to work for iRacing as a director in the company. On picture right, Divina today.
Desiré Randall Wilson
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Desire Wilson celebrating her win at Brands Hatch Aurora F1 series |
It's a completely different story with South African Desiré Wilson, one of the most naturally talented, ferocious competitors that I know, a fierce lady driver who was only in F1 for the sport. Up until now, she is the only woman who can claim to have won a post-war F1 race. Shame it happened to be at Brands Hatch in the short-lived British Aurora F1 series, a race open to F1 machinery, might be a better way to describe it. As a result of this achievement, she has a grandstand at Brands Hatch named after her. She competed in only one official F1 race, not counting South African GP.
Desiré Wilson (born Randall) was born 26 November 1953 in Brakpan, one of only five women to have competed in Formula One.
Desire started racing in 1960 in South Africa, her homeland, and raced a variety of cars before winning the South African Formula Ford Championship in 1975. She moved to England and embarked on an open wheel and sports car racing career where she competed against and often beat the likes of Kevin Cogan and Bobby Rahal.
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Desire Wilson 1980 competing in Wolf Ford WR4 |
In 1980, only two months before her outing at the British GP, Wilson had become the only woman to win a Formula 1 race of any kind when she won in the Aurora F1 series in the UK with Theodore-run Wolf WR4 with fastest race lap. Same year and in same Aurora championship she finished 2nd at Thruxton with fastest race lap and 3rd at Mallory Park race. This win led into her attempt to qualify for the British Grand Prix. Also in 1980 Desire finished 1st at World Endurance Championship race at Monza 1000km race and 1st in World Endurance Championship race at Silverstone six-hour race.
Desiré Wilson took part in the British Grand Prix same year, held at the same racing track where she won the second round of the Aurora championship just two months before. With a non-works Williams FW07 prepared by Brands Hatch Racing she failed to qualify for the race due to an improperly repaired and different car than she had won the Aurora series in, and didn't get used to the newer Williams before qualifying was over. The same model was also driven by the other private entrant of the event, 1979 Aurora champ Rupert Keegan, who took the wheel of the No.50 entry shared by RAM Automotive and WPGE.
Only Keegan featured well in qualifying, lining up like 18th in his semi-works RAM car, ahead of a certain Gilles Villeneuve. Desire failed to qualify for her Championship debut, qualifying dead last, half a second behind a certain Keke Rosberg and only a second behind the reigning World Champion Jody Scheckter, who qualified a lowly 23rd for a Ferrari team hitting another one of its low patches. Ken Tyrrell however was so impressed by Wilson and he offered her a drive for the 1981 South African GP. She qualified 16th, stalled her car at the start, but in the wet caught up to the rest of the pack and passed numerous drivers including Eddie Cheever in the same Tyrrell and astonishingly enough she ran as high as 6th at one stage. She even had a brief battle with Nigel Mansell. After 51 laps however she damaged her gearbox and had to retired. Due to the political trouble of 1981, the South African race was stripped of World Championship status and officially Desire Wilson’s British Grand Prix entry is the only one she has.
Again, Ken Tyrrell offered her a drive for the rest of the year, if she could come up with enough sponsorship, but Michele Alboreto however raised $1 million and he got the drive instead. She had an extremely difficult time finding sponsorship because she was a native of South Africa when apartheid was at the height of exposure.
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Wilson teamed up with Alain de Cadenet in sportscars, with some success. Here Wilson sits in the pits at Silverstone in 1980, a race she went on to win. |
In 1982, she attempted to qualify for the Indy 500 racing for team Theodore driving 81 Eagle with a team that was underfunded and in equipment that wasn't competitive. Same year she competed in 8 races in CART Indy Car World Series for Wysard Racing, and finished 7th in Le Mans 24 Hour race driving Porsche 956.
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Desire Wilson in Ford Werke with codriver Jonathan Palmerduring Brands Hatch race, finished 4th in race |
1986 Desire finished 1st and 3rd in SSGT Class Escort Endurance Series at Mosport and Mid Ohio 24 Hour driving Saleen Mustang. She continued to race in the United States and the United Kingdom in open wheel and sports cars with some stellar performances, and after a horrific crash at Brainerd, Minn.
She raced in the 1991 24 Hours of LeMans too. She became involved in other disciplines including CART and sports car racing, and in the end, the CART pace car programme. Her last competitive outing was in the now-defunct North American Touring Car Championship.
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Desiré Randall Wilson 10 years ago and 2010 at Goodwood Revival where she drive 1960 Jaguar E Type and Mini Cooper S (4th position) |
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Desiré went to the States later on and she became a U.S. citizen and lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, Alan Wilson, who is a renowned racecourse designer. They now manage the new Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. Until today, she have impressive racing resume with 12 Pole Positions, 24 Wins, 16 Second Places, 43 Third Places, 28 Fastest Race Laps and 17 Track Records all together. Desiré has driven more than 120 different types of race cars on more than 98 race tracks in 17 different countries in her career. A lot of mans can envy her for success.
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Desiré and Alan Wilson in office of the new Miller Motorsports Park in Utah they now manage |
Giovanna Amati
Giovanna Amati was born July 20, 1962 in Rome. Unlike many of the female drivers who raced at the top level before her, Amati probably owed her opportunities to the fact she was a woman. This Italian lady-racer was the last or maybe latest woman trying to qualify to a GP. Amati described her experience there for F1 Racing Magazine, saying: "It's a male environment and they want to keep it that way - the drivers, the journalists, everyone. Only one person came up to me and offered me his hand at my first GP in South Africa - and that was Ayrton Senna. He came over and said, 'Welcome Giovanna, I'm glad you're here. My congratulations.' The others ignored me, and when I failed they shrugged and said it was because I was a woman." True Champions, it seems, are sometimes proven as Greats not just on track...
Born to wealthy parents, Amati had a colorful childhood, including being kidnapped for ransom, and buying a Honda motorcycle when she was 15, managing to hide it from her parents for two years. She began racing professionally in 1981, winning several times over the next four years in Formula Abarth before moving up to Italian Formula Three in 1985-86, again scoring a few wins. By 1987 she had moved up to Formula 3000, with GJ Motorsports Reynard 91D, but by 1992 had recorded a best result of only 7th place in six seasons in both Europe and Japan.
For a driver of such dubious pedigree, it's a miracle alone she reached the highest level of motor racing. But she was an aggressive racer. Amati entered in the Brabham team during its death struggle in 1992 when she tried to qualify three times but never got into the race. She gets the second seat for that Grand Prix season. With only previous Formula One experience being one test in a Benetton (courtesy of her then-partner Flavio Briatore), it was perhaps unsurprising that she failed to qualify. Taking the quality of car and a complete lack of testing into account though, it was hardly a surprise she failed in any of her three attempts. The last of the Brabhams was a slightly upgraded version of 1991's BT60Y, modified to fit a Judd engine into the gap Yamaha had left.
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Giovanna Amati in upgraded version of 1991's Brabhams BT60Y |
Even talented team leader Eric van de Poele missed out in every one of his qualifying efforts bar the first race in South Africa, the Belgian lucking in because of the unpreparedness of others. In the F3 and F3000 classes she had been in previously she had not proved any exceptional speed but she wasn't a total failure either. A lady driver however was thought to give the team some attention and bring some needed sponsorship to the Brabham team. But she was replaced, as her financial backing had not materialized, by none other than Damon Hill who at the time had lots of experience driving F1 cars by being employed by Williams as their test driver. Even so he only fared a little better and only qualified in two of the 8 GPs he was entered in.
Since then, Amati went on to carve out a respectable career in sportscars, placing 3rd overall in the Sports Racing World Cup SR2 class championship in 1999. She has also moved into media, writing columns in Italy for motorsport publications and providing television commentary.
