Olympic Speedqueens

 

Divina Galica (left) and Ann Moore

Many Speedqueens have achieved success in other sports. Here are five of the best-known Olympian female racing drivers. This is in no way an exhaustive list.

Divina Galica was a downhill skier who competed in four winter Olympics between 1964 and 1992, in the downhill and slalom skiing events and later, speed skiing, a demonstration discipline. She attempted to qualify for three grands prix between 1976 and 1978 and enjoyed success in Group 8 single-seaters, truck racing and sportscars. Her introduction to motorsport came through a Shellsport celebrity race for sportspeople.

Showjumper Ann Moore also got into motor racing through the Shellsport organisation and its celebrity events. As an equestrian, she won a silver medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics, riding her horse Psalm. Her racing career was short, beginning with one ladies' race in 1975 and six further outings in a Formula Ford 2000.

Belgian swimmer Chantal Grimard made a surprise switch to touring cars in the 1980s. She first raced in the Belgian championship in 1985, driving a VW Golf, before appearing in the 1986 Spa 24 Hours in a Toyota Corolla. This was part of an all-female team. She also did some rounds of the French F3 championship in 1987 before retiring. As a swimmer, she had entered four events at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Swiss sportscar racer Lilian Bryner was another equestrian, competing at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. As a racing driver, she was the first woman to win the Spa 24 Hours in 2004, driving a Ferrari 550. She had won the GT class the year before, finishing second. She has raced multiple times at Le Mans and has World Sportscar Championship wins in a Ferrari 333 prototype.

Carole Montillet of France won a gold medal in downhill skiing and also had a decent career in rally raids after her retirement. She won the all-female Rallye Aicha des Gazelles rally raid in 2011 and 2012, after class wins in the quad class in 2004 and 2005. In 2007, she took part in the Dakar, driving a Nissan, but did not finish.

Megan Gilkes

 

Megan Gilkes is a single-seater racer from Canada. She has achieved success in Formula Ford and competed in the inaugural season of W Series.

She has been a leading name in Canadian Formula 1200 since 2017, when she competed for the first of two seasons in the championship. In her debut year she picked up her first win and she was runner-up in the championship and in 2018. Another win came at Mosport in 2018 and was one of seven podium finishes, from nine races.

Her experiences in larger-capacity cars have not been quite as successful, but she has raced both Formula 2000 in Canada and Formula Vee in Brazil. 

In 2019, she was announced as one of the 18 drivers selected for the women-only W Series and shortly after that, began competing in the F3 Americas championship. She was one of the weaker drivers in the W Series and was substituted for one race, in an unpopular move by W management. Her only real highlight was her win in the Assen reverse-grid race, which was not part of the championship.  

She ran better in US F3, picking up one ninth place at Pittsburgh. She also started the Virginia round but crashed in the first race, meaning she was unable to start the other two that weekend. 

Back in a Van Diemen F2000, she did a couple of races in the US championship, finishing seventh at Road Atlanta. 

At the end of 2020, she travelled to the UK for the Formula Ford Festival and the  Walter Hayes Trophy, driving a Kevin Mills Racing Spectrum. Her first run in the Festival started promisingly with a fifth in her heat, then she was twelfth in her semi-final . She reached the final of the Walter Hayes at Silverstone, but was involved in a low-speed multi-car pile-up and was unable to finish. Staying in the UK, she entered the 2021 National Formula Ford championship with the team, earning a best finish of fourth at Snetterton in the penultimate race of the season.

Sticking with single-seaters, she moved over to the F4-level GB4 championship in 2022. Driving for the Hillspeed team, she won two reverse-grid races at Snetterton and Donington, plus another third from pole at Silverstone, on her way to a sixth place in the championship. Formula Ford had not been forgotten either and she did the first half of the National season, plus the Formula Ford Festival and the Walter Hayes Trophy. She scored two fourth places in Festival heats.

At the beginning of 2024, she was announced as a driver for Rodin Carlin in the all-female F1 Academy series. Part-way through the season, she announced that this would be her last as a driver and that she would concentrate on her engineering career at the Aston Martin F1 team from 2024. She was thirteenth in the championship, with a few top tens and a best finish of fifth at the Red Bull Ring.

(Image copyright challengecupseries.com)