Carole Vergnaud

Carole Vergnaud is a French driver who was a member of the Citroen works team for rallies. She won the 1986 Mille Pistes Rally outright, in a Citroen Visa with Marie-Claude Jouan as co-driver.

She got her start as a rally driver via the Citroen Total Trophy, a rally competition for women organised by Citroen France. She had been co-driving occasionally since 1982 and competed in the Swedish Rally twice.

The qualifying stages were held in 1983, with the main competition phase held through the 1984 season, using identical Citroen Visas. Carole, the youngest driver at 21, was joint fifth, having won one round, the Mille Pistes Rally. The women's trophy was run as a class in the rally, and Carole was 18th overall.

Her first international rally as a driver was in 1985. She entered the Monte in a Citroen Visa, driving for the French junior team. She did not finish, and she did not get to the end of her second World Championship rally, the Tour de Corse. The car's clutch failed. Later in the year, she tried again, entering the Sanremo Rally and the RAC Rally. She did not finish either.

Away from the international scene, she fared better, although the Visa did seem to suffer from a variety of problems. She was fourth in the Rallye de la Baule in June, then ninth in the Rallye Terre de Charente, showing her skill on both tarmac and gravel. A second gravel event, the Terres de Beauce Rally, gave her a seventh place.

A first international finish still eluded her in 1986; she retired from the Swedish Rally after the Visa's gearbox went. However, after that disappointment, she had a superb run in the French gravel championship, beginning with a fourth place in the Terre des Bruyeres Rally. Her first podium came a couple of months later, when she was third in the Terre de Provence Rally. The results kept on coming, with a second place in Terre de Charente event, then her Mille Pistes victory. Sadly, another international outing in the Hunsruck Rallye in Germany ended in retirement, and the Citroen was less reliable in the second half of the season. She scored on more podium; a second place in the Rallye Terre des Cardabelles. At the end of the year, she was fourth in the French gravel championship.

Spurred on by her 1986 successes, she attempted the European rounds of the 1987 World Championship. After Henri Toivonen's horrific accident in Corsica in 1986, regulations had changed considerably, leaving the Group B Visa largely ineligible. Carole and seven other French drivers were unclassified in that year's Monte due to this. After some revisions, the car was allowed to compete in the Swedish Rally, and Carole was 24th. The rest of her WRC campaign ended with a series of DNFs in Portugal, Greece and Finland, with the car unreliable once more.

A surprising avenue for another victory had opened up that year, spurred on by the Group B situation. Citroen entered Carole and the Visa into the Atlas Rally, a rally-raid event, against dedicated off-road vehicles. She managed to win a stage outright.

The Visa was retired for 1988, replaced by the Citroen AX, running in class A5. The Citroen works team entered Carole into the Portugal, Sanremo and UK WRC rounds, but again, it wasn't to be. She finished one, the RAC Rally, in 41st place, after crashing out of the earlier two. Her Sanremo accident was a lucky escape. She had come off the road on a sharp turn with a steep drop to one side, and had only just climbed to safety when Jean-Marc Dubois and Robert Moynier crashed their Citroen at the same spot, killing both.

Her final season as a driver was 1989. She stayed in France, supported by the Citroen team for at least some of her rallies. The AX ran in a few different configurations, the most successful of these being a class A2 version, which gave Carole an eleventh place and a class win in the Rallye Alpin-Behra. This was one of three finishes this year, the others being a twelfth place in the Rallye des Garrigues, and 24th in the Tour Automobile de Nice.

As well as rallying, Carole raced Citroens on the track with some success. She competed in the 1987 and 1988 French Touring Car Championship, driving a works Citroen EX. She was third in at least one race in 1988, at Rouen-les-Essarts.

After almost an entire career spent in Citroen machinery, she entered the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1991, driving a Toyota 4Runner with Nanouk de Belabre. They were 73rd overall.

Later, she did some ice racing in the Andros Trophy, in 1992 and 1995. 

(Image copyright Citroen)

Rita Rampinelli

Rita Rampinelli was a Swiss driver active in the 1950s. 

She mostly competed in hillclimbs across Europe, first in a Cisitalia D46, and later, a Porsche 550 Spyder. 

The Cisitalia was a Formula 2-spec car. She drove it extensively in hillclimbs, although she does not seem to have raced it on track. Between 1951 and 1955, she was a regular top-three finisher in the class for racing cars up to 1100cc, including a second place in the 1953 Ollon-Villars climb, which was faster than the time set by bigger cars. She repeated this at the 1953 Mitholz-Kandersteg event. This hillclimb was one of her favourites; she scored another class third in it in 1955. 

She is sometimes described as the first Swiss woman to buy a Porsche, although this might mean a racing Porsche, as glider pilot Jolanda Tschudi owned one of the first ever production Porsches, as a road car. 

Before the cessation of circuit racing in Switzerland, she came fourth in the Swiss national championship twice, although details of which race series this referred to, are hard to pinpoint. It is likely that hillclimbs played at least some part.

In 1953, she drove in a sportscar race supporting the Swiss Grand Prix, at Bremgarten, and was sixth, in a Porsche 356. Driving a 1500cc Porsche, she crashed out of the Preis von Bremgarten later in the year.

She appears in the start list for a similar event in 1954, but the result is not forthcoming. 

For the summer of 1956, she bought the 550 Spyder, first racing it in the Saint Ursanne-Rangiers hillclimb in June.

As well as circuit racing and hillclimbs, she also participated in rallies, including the Monte Carlo Rally in 1954, alongside Max Brunner, a hot-air balloonist. Her car was an Opel Olympia and she just made it to the finish in 215th place, having started at Munich. Early in the rally, she was penalised for damaging the car's wing in collision with a lorry. This was probably not the first time she had entered. 

Rita was quite self-motivated in her racing career, although she was from a family with motorsport heritage. Her father, a car dealer, had competed in the 1930s. She herself was involved in the motor trade, giving her profession as "garagiste" in an interview during the 1953 Monte. 

Rita died in 2011, at the age of 88. She outlived her partner, opera singer Hansy von Krauss, by three years.

(Image copyright Berner Zeitung)

Kornelia Olkucka

Kornelia Olkucka is a Polish single-seater racer who has competed in F4 across Europe.

She raced in CEZ F4 in 2024. This was her debut in cars and she raced for the Swiss Maffi team. The first two rounds at Balaton Park and the Red Bull Ring were tough for her, but she became a reliable finisher, with a best finish of sixth at Brno. Her team withdrew her from the last round at Salzburg and she was 17th in the championship, second of the three female regulars behind Michalina Sabaj.

Staying with the Maffi set-up, she entered the Formula Winter Series at the start of 2025. Her aims were mostly learning still, and she did finish all twelve races. This was in spite of some of them being rather incident-filled, including one at Valencia where her two of her rivals were penalised for pushing her off the track. Her best finish was at Catalunya, where she was 20th in the final race of the year. This was her second top-twenty after another at Valencia. She was 37th in the championship.

This was preparation for a season in Italian F4 in 2025. The Maffi team entered four drivers, two more experienced and two rookies, Kornelia and David Walther. The first round at Misano was a tough one; she was 27th in the first race, despite suffering tyre damage following contact, then 26th in her second heat, but she did not qualify for the final. The Vallelunga rounds were also in a heats-and-final format, and the weather was bad to boot. Kornelia finished one of her races in 22nd place, having spun out of Race 1 due to contact with another car. Again, she did not qualify for the final. At Monza and Mugello, she finished all three races both times, scoring a best result of 26th, at Monza. Unfortunately, she then had two DNFs at Imola. It was a chaotic meeting and Race 2 had to be cancelled completely after a startline pile-up. Kornelia received a three-place grid penalty for crashing into her team-mate in an attempt to avoid stationary cars. At the time of writing, there are two more rounds left on the calendar.

Prior to her switch to cars, she was a karter from the age of 14, and represented Poland at the 2022 Motorsport Games in the Karting Endurance category. She has expressed interest in sports psychology and suggested it as a future career move.

(Image copyright Maffi Racing/Kornelia Olkucka)

Gaby dela Merced

Gaby dela Merced is a Filipino driver who raced single-seaters in the 2000s, up to Asian Formula 3 level.

She was fourteenth in the 2006 Asian Formula 3 championship, racing in the Promotion class. Her best overall finish was seventh, at Batul in Indonesia. She also ran quite well at Batanga and Zhuhai. One of her rivals was Michele Bumgarner. The two were the highest-scoring Filipino drivers, from five, with Gaby the second highest.

She first raced saloons in 2002, after two seasons in slalom and autocross. Her first championship was the SVI Challenge Cup and she was third in the novice class. Her car is not recorded, but her car for the same series in 2003 was a Honda Civic. She won at least two races at Subic International Raceway and was second in the championship, after duelling with her team-mate Mikko David at the front all year. 

She also competed in the BRC (Batanga Racing Circuit) Production Touring Car Championship, finishing third. 

Later, she raced in a Formula Toyota championship in the Philippines, which used a Japanese-spec single-seater with slicks and wings. She was runner-up in Formula Toyota in 2004 and also competed in half of the Asian Formula BMW championship, driving for Team Tec Pilipinas. Her best finish was eleventh, at Beijing. She had been awarded a scholarship drive for Formula BMW and this was her prize drive. The scholarship was decided via a shootout at Johor in Malaysia, and this was the first time she had driven a single-seater.

Post-Formula 3, she attempted to launch her career in America, like her compatriot Michele Bumgarner would manage the year after. However, she could not find a seat anywhere with the money she had.

Between 2006 and 2009, she does not appear to have raced much, and concentrated on her TV career, which included a stint on Filipino Big Brother. She made her comeback, racing in endurance events in the USA. One of these races was the 2008 25 Hours of Thunderhill, where she shared a BMW M3 with Robbie Montinola and Angelo Barretto. The all-Filipino team was twelfth overall and sixth in class. Earlier in the year, she made a guest appearance in the PTC at Subic.

She had to stop racing in 2010 after a knee injury. This was later found to be due to an inflammatory condition which needed surgery. This limited her participation for quite some time. For about five years in total, she had to stop doing all sports.

What also did not help was Gaby's involvement in a so-called Filipino racing team designed to get Filipino drivers into NASCAR. This 2013 plan turned out to involve no racing at all; a supposed multinational race at Charlotte was reduced to a driving experience day more commonly sold to complete novices. Gaby was sanguine about her experiences, claiming that "sh** happens".

Her next adventure was the Transasia TA2 championship in 2014, based on the Trans Am formula in America. Her car was a 450bhp Ford stock car and she raced across Asia for a Korean team. She made a few guest appearances in the series after that.

After another long hiatus, she returned to Asian motorsport for the Giti Formula V1 Race Challenge in 2019. This is a sportscar championship using the same Vita prototype as the all-female Kyojo Cup in Japan. She also guested in the Thailand Super Series round at Sepang, sharing a TA2 Ford Mustang with Australian Jaylyn Robotham. They were 16th in one race. 

Since then, she has done some drifting, and more media work, including some acting and TV hosting. Her last motorsport outings were the MSCC Mazda Cup in the Philippines in 2024.

She also competes in flag football, joining the Philippines womens' team in 2023. 

(Image copyright Gaby dela Merced)

Lisa Clark

Lisa Clark is an American driver who has competed in the US Ferrari Challenge since 2017. She is known online as "Racer Mom".

Speed was a family thing when she was growing up; her father raced dirt bikes and the two used to ride together at night. Lisa always gravitated towards four wheels rather than two, and a payout she received after a motorcycle accident helped her to afford a Porsche, which she used for autocross. There was a long gap while she was having her children, but she never gave up on her plan. She found out about the Ferrari Corsa Pilota training programme when she bought her first road-going Ferrari, then realised that she could also race the car competitively. Preparation consisted of karting and some arrive-and-drive endurance races in Europe, then she was ready to go.

In her first season, she did just two races, at Bowmanville in Canada. She finished both, in tenth place. The following year, she did five of the championship's eight races, finishing in the top ten in three of them. The best of these was a sixth place at Watkins Glen. She was eleventh in the championship.

She secured her first trophy in 2019, coming home first in the Am class of the North American Challenge at Sebring. This was one of five podiums that season, on her way to sixth place.

She also raced in Europe, entering the Le Mans round of the European Ferrari Challenge, although she did not finish. The World Final at Mugello gave her a tenth place.

Her 2020 campaign was a part-season. She did just over two-thirds of the meetings and her best one was the away round at Misano, where she won the Am class twice. She was sixth in the World Final at Misano.

In 2021, she scored her first overall podium, a third at Homestead-Miami. After a stronger season, she was sixth in the championship. In Europe, she raced in the Ferrari Coppa Shell at Valencia and the Nurburgring, with a best finish of ninth at the Nurburgring.

She also did her first major race outside the Ferrari Challenge, and not in a Ferrari. Driving an Audi R8 LMS GT4 with Jeff Westphal, Martin Lechman and Mark Issa, she was third in class in the Barcelona 24H, 24th overall.

2022 was one of her best seasons yet, with three podium finishes in the Am class on her way to a class third overall in the Coppa Shell North America. She also raced in Europe at Portimao and Paul Ricard, scoring points in the Coppa Shell Europe.

In 2023, she was 15th in the championship and eleventh in the World Final. However, this was just gearing up for a busy year in 2024, with another full Ferrari Challenge season and some extras. She took part in the FIA Motorsport Games in the single-make GT section, finishing eleventh, and also raced her Ferrari in Europe in two rounds of the 24h Series. This was with the Pellin team who ran her in the Coppa Shell Europe, sharing a GT3 Ferrari 488 with Jeff Westphal and Kyle Marcelli. They were tenth and ninth in class in the two Mugello 12 Hour races. They were twelfth and 17th overall.

Another season split between the Ferrari Challenge and the 24H Series in Europe beckoned in 2025. She used the same Ferrari 296 for both.

Image copyright 24H Series

Her car is run by Ferrari of Beverly Hills in the American championship.

Barbara Johansson

Barbara Johansson was a Swedish race and rally driver most active in the 1960s. She usually drove small cars and is most associated with the Mini. She was nicknamed "Bra-Bra" by the Swedish press, with "bra" translating here as "good".

Barbara was born in the USA to Swedish parents, although she lived her entire adult life in Sweden. She had always been interested in cars and enjoyed driving fast in her parent's Ford V8 when going to and from the stables where she kept her horses. After her marriage, she began her motorsport career in speedboats, sharing a vessel with her husband. Her husband worked for a Peugeot dealership and it was at the suggestion of his boss that she tried out motor racing. She won her first event, driving a Peugeot 203.

She was highly successful in the Swedish Touring Car Championship and won a Group 2 race outright, at Knutstorp in 1964. Her car was a Mini Cooper run by the works BMC team. She was also second at Falkenberg and fourth at Skarpnack, and would have been Group 2 champion without a couple of non-finishes. According to a story, DKW driver Sigurd Isaakson said that if she beat him in a race, he would withdraw from the championship. She did defeat him in 1964, albeit in a different class, and he did go home.

Her first STCC appearance was in 1960, at Karlskoga, where she drove a Peugeot 403 and finished tenth, eight laps down. Sharing the same car with Jan Englund and Carl-Erik Linn, she was 21st in the end-of-season enduro at Skarpnack. 

In 1961, she appeared in the same race, driving a Renault Dauphine this time. Her co-drivers were Gunnar Friberg and Lars-Erik Tisell and they were 17th overall. This was as part of a Renault dealer team who were trying to gain attention by employing a female driver.

She then disappears from the STCC entry lists until 1964. She did two rounds of the championship in 1965, finishing one, at Karlskoga, in fifth place. Again, she was driving a Mini.

The 1966 STCC featured Barbara and her Mini racing in its mid-season events. She was tenth at Skarpnack, eighth at Karlskoga and twelfth at Falmarksbanen. After this, BMC began to scale back its motorsport activities and could no longer support her.

After touring cars, she also raced single-seaters. Photos exist of her competing in Formula Vee in 1967, although results are not readily available. Her car was a German-designed Dolling. By this time, she had separated from her husband and was combining her competition career with bringing up two children, helped by a nanny. She went back to racing boats, continuing to compete on and off until the early '70s.

Alongside her racing career, she competed in rallies. When BMC Sweden's representative Bosse Elmhorn saw her competing in local ice races and rallies, it was their rally team she was originally signed up for. Her team-mate was Harry Kallstrom, In a reflection of her track activitiy, she had already entered the Swedish Midnight Sun Rally in 1960, in a Peugeot 403, and the same event in 1961, in a works-supported Renault Gordini. She was also on the entry list for the Malarallyt.

In 1963, she was part of the BMC set-up. She was assigned a Mini Cooper for the Midnight Sun Rally, but then switched to an MG 1100 for three more Swedish events. At the end of the year, she did her first overseas rally, the RAC Rally in the UK, driving the Mini with Sheila Taylor. Sadly, the suspension failed when they were in fifth place.

A regular partnership with Margot Bradhe formed for 1964. Apparently, Margot was a calming influence on Barbara's aggressive driving style; she did not believe in lifting off the throttle. They drove the Mini Cooper almost exclusively and entered the Monte Carlo Rally for the first time, although they do not seem to have finished. Barbara's best finish was a 24th place in the Midnight Sun event, There were 138 finishers that year and many more starters. Later in the year, she won the Ladies' prize in the Jamt Rally.

Her last year as a rally driver was in 1965. BMC were already scaling back by then and she was back in a Renault 8 Gordini. She and Inga-Lill Edenring entered the Midnight Sun Rally, but do not appear to have finished.

She died in 2013, aged 80.

(For reference, Tommy Lyngborn's 2014 article provided a lot of the additional information here.)

Image copyright Upplands Museum, Sweden.

Liliana de Menna

Liliana de Menna was a stalwart of the Italian touring car scene who was active between 1963 and 1994. 

Her first efforts were in races for small-engined saloons, when she competed under the name of "Liliana" in the hope that she wouldn't worry her family. She had got into motorsport after visiting the Vallelunga circuit with friends who raced; throughout her career, Vallelunga would remain her favourite circuit. She had seen world karting champion Susy Raganelli testing with her father and decided to try it for herself.

She won a saloon championship in her first year of racing, winning nine races outright. Her car was a 600cc Fiat 500 Montecarlo. 

The following year she won Class 2 of the Coppa Carotti hillclimb. She did several hillclimbs during her career; the Italian touring car championship was a combination of hillclimbs and circuit races at the time. In 1968, she finished the Cesano-Sestriere climb, in the middle of a group of Giannini Fiat 500s, as well as winning her class in the Bolzano-Mendola event.

She was the Italian ladies' champion in 1968. Her marriage to Italo Cantera did not slow her down and the pair even raced together in the Vallelunga 2 Hours one year. 

Some time at the end of the '60s, she had a daughter and took a lengthy hiatus from motorsport. She stopped attending race meetings because she didn't enjoy them without being able to compete herself. It wasn't until the late '70s that she came back. According to her, Giancarlo Naddeo asked her to join the Renault 5 one-make series, and she agreed. She also raced in single-make series for the Fiat 127 and MG Metro. This was the car she shared with her husband.

One-make racing led back to the Italian Touring Car Championship in the 1980s. In 1989, she raced at Pergusa in a Renault 5, coming 11th. She was then tenth at Vallelunga. For the second Vallelunga round, she shared an Audi Europa-run VW Golf with Michele Rayneri, but did not finish. 

She even raced for Lella Lombardi's team in the Italian Supertouring series in 1991, using a Ford Escort for the Pergusa 2 Hour race. Her team-mate was Walter Santus and they finished 18th. Earlier in the season, she had raced a Toyota Corolla in the Trofeo Mario Angiolini at Monza. 

Later in her career, she raced sportscars, including a Nissan 300ZX in 1992, which she used for that year's Vallelunga 6 Hours. She and Francesco Ramacciotti were 2st overall. In 1994, she entered the Italian Supercar GT championship in a Mazda RX-7, driving solo.  She was disqualified from the first meeting at Monza, but won her class twice at the next round, held at Magione. Her overall results were a fifth and fourth place. The next race she appeared in was round 5, at Varano, but she could only manage one twelfth place.

She raced in America for the first time in 1999, more than 30 years after she made her debut, when she did some rounds of the all-female Women's Global GT series, driving a Panoz Esperante. Her programme consisted of two guest appearances. 

She died in 2021.

(Image from Il Messaggero)