Women Drivers in One-Make Series: Sweden

Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky

Female drivers have competed in many of Sweden's one-make series, both past and present. In the 1980s, the Lady Racing Club's women-only events provided several "graduates" to one-make championships.

Eva Bornebusch - mostly raced in one-make series in Sweden and Finland, in the 1980s and 1990s. She began in the Lancia Lady Cup in 1986, where she was eighth. In 1988, she raced a Rover Vitesse, including a run in the Kemora 500km endurance race in Finland. She was seventh, with Janina Österholm and Catta Lindgren. With Karlson and Bokaj, she also made a rare visit to France, for the Nogaro ETCC race, but did not finish. In 1990, she was fourth in the Kemora 500, with her father, Kaj Bornebusch, driving a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. Both the Rover and the Sierra had originally belonged to him, and Eva apparently raced both of them around Sweden during this time. In 1992, she took part in the Renault Clio Cup of Scandianvia, and was eighth. She returned to the series in 1993, but was fifteenth this time.

Lottie Halvards-Mattsson - one of the early members of Sweden’s Lady Racing Club. She took part in the Mini Lady Cup in at least 1980 and 1981, and possibly before. She was sixth in 1980 and second in 1981. Later, she did some races in the Lancia Lady Cup. In between, she raced in mixed competition in the SSK Trophy and the Vredestein Cup, in an Opel Kadett. She was sixth in the Vredestein Cup in 1982. Lottie was involved with the Magnum Racing team, like the Lindgren sisters, throughout the early 1980s.

Siri Hokfelt - Swedish driver who races a Mini in the all-electric NXT Gen Cup. Her best result of the year was an eighth place at Falkenberg and she is the quickest of the four female drivers in the championship. She was ninth in the 2024 championship, with a best finish of seventh at the Sachsenring. In 2023, Despite only being 16 years old when she made her NXT Gen debut, she has been racing since 2020. In 2020 and 2021, she took part in the Swedish Renault Junior Cup, finishing sixth and fourteenth respectively in her Clio. She also tried out an Aquila Formula 1000 single-seater in 2021.

Eva Kjellkvist-Pulls - long-term member of the Swedish Lady Racing Club, who participated in all of the editions of the Lancia Lady Cup, and some of its Mini-based predecessors, in 1979 and 1980.  Her best overall finish was second in the Lancia version, in 1984. After the end of the Lancia Lady Cup, she carried on racing in the Camaro Cup in Sweden, using a Chevrolet Camaro left over from a British racing series. In 1989, her first season, she was thirteenth. Her best finish was eighth, in 1996, which seems to have been her last season.

Helena Larsson - competed in one-make series in both touring and sports cars. After some years in karting, she started her career in 1999, in the Volvo S40 Junior Touring Car Cup. She was thirteenth in her first year. By 2001, she was seventh, having achieved three podiums. In 2002, she bought a Volvo S60 for the STCC-supporting Volvo S60 Challenge. In this series, she was 16th in 2002 and 20th in 2003, running as the only female driver. After that, she made some appearances in the Swedish Radical Championship in 2005 and 2006, before disappearing from the scene. She was in a relationship with fellow driver, Fredrik Hager, whom she beat in the 1999 Junior Touring Cup. 

Louise Larsson - raced in the electric NXT Gen Cup in northern Europe in 2023. She was 17th in the championship, with a best finish of tenth at Falkenberg, early in the season. The Mini-based NXT Gen Cup took over as Sweden’s junior championship in 2023 and Louise did three seasons in its predecessor, the Renault Junior Cup. 2021 was her best year and she was sixth overall, although she did manage a podium finish in 2022, finishing third at Karlskoga. In 2023, she also tried out single-seaters, entering a round of the Swedish Aquila Formula 1000 series. She switched to Aquila Formula 1000 in 2024, finishing tenth in the Swedish championship, and also raced a Volvo in the Volvo Original one-make series.

Catta Lindgren - winner of the Lady Opel Cup in Sweden in 1990. Previously, in 1986, she raced in the Lancia Lady Cup, and was sixth overall, with one podium finish. In the 1988 Lady Cup, she was third. In between, she seems to have done some mixed-gender racing, too, including the 1988 Kemora 500 Midnight Sun race in Finland, in which she was seventh, as part of an all-female team with Eva Bornebusch and Janina Österholm, in a Rover Vitesse. She may also have raced in Sweden, in other series of the time. Catta is the sister of Nettan Lindgren.

Emelie Moe – races a Renault Clio in her native Sweden. She started in 2012, in the Junior Clio Cup championship (JTCC). This followed some years as a junior karter, from the age of fourteen to twenty. Her first races ended in two twelfth places, at Östersund, her home track. In 2013, she was fifteenth in the JTCC, with a best finish of sixth, at Östersund. In 2014, she graduated to the senior Clio Cup, and was eleventh, sixth as her best finish again, this time at Göteborg. The following year, she was also eleventh in the championship, but she achieved her first podium, at Skövde, a second place. She continued to race in the Clio Cup in 2016, and was eleventh again. She was a consistent top-ten finisher, but did not repeat her podium finishes of 2015, with a sixth place at Knutstorp her best finish. 

Laila Riis-Pedersen - a regular in the Camaro Cup in Sweden for many years. She entered at least eight times, between 1992 and 2002. Her best season was 2001, when she was fifth overall. She was also sixth in 1996, and in the top ten three more times. As well as the main Camaro Cup, she also raced her Chevy in other, one-off events, and was sixth in the Solvalla 500 endurance race in 1996.

Sophie West - one-make specialist from Sweden. She began in the Scandinavian Porsche Carrera Cup in 2008, which she described as “too fast”, and then spent two years in the JTCC saloon series, which she described as “too slow”. Her car was a Toyota Auris, and her best finish was sixth, in the first round of the 2010 championship. She was 18th in 2009 and 16th in 2010, after a few top tens and in 2010, several missed rounds and DNFs. In 2011, she began racing in the Scandinavian Trofeo Abarth 500, where she found more form. After her first season, she was eleventh, with a best finish of seventh at Anderstorp, and six further top ten places. In 2012, she only contested five rounds of the Swedish series, with a best finish of fifth at Karlskoga, but was ninth overall. She also entered some European Trofeo Abarth rounds, but information about these is not forthcoming. 

(Image from www.redakt.se)

The Lancia Lady Cup

Lady Cup-spec Lancia A112 Abarth

This one-make championship for female drivers in Sweden ran from 1984 to 1989. It used the Lancia-badged Autobianchi A112 Abarth, a motorcycle-engined supermini that had been in production for quite some time before the Cup’s existence. The marketing department at Fiat had noted that the A112 was bought by a comparatively very large number of younger women, which seems to have informed the creation of this racing series. Its connection to Sweden is slightly puzzling, as Swedish motoring was dominated by domestic brands like Saab and Volvo, but the A112 was sold there, and had been badged as Lancia rather than Autobianchi for some time.

The championship itself was organised by the Swedish  women racing drivers’ club, and followed on from their earlier all-female racing series, which used the Mini. Women’s championships had been a feature of Swedish motorsport since at least 1979. The women drivers’ club formed in the late 1970s, and its membership formed most of the entrants for the Lady Cup. Drivers were all Swedish, or racing under a Swedish license.

Each Lady Cup championship consisted of six rounds, normally contested within Sweden, although one year, 1987, a race was held in Hungary, as a support to the Hungarian Grand Prix. It is unclear whether this was part of the championship.

The first championship, in 1984, was won by Åsa Johansson, the sister of Formula One driver, Stefan Johansson. Subsequent Lady Cups were mostly won by Nettan Lindgren, who dominated the series completely for most of its lifetime. In 1988, she made a clean sweep of wins, pole positions and fastest laps, after missing out on only one win in 1987. In 1989, Eva Bornebusch won the title.

Nettan Lindgren went on to race in the BTCC. Her near-total dominance of the Lady Cup meant that there was not much room for another female star to come up through the ranks. Mostly, Lady Cup competitors were active in Swedish club and national-level motorsport. One of the longest-standing members of the Swedish women racing drivers’ club, Ulla Britt Wigh, raced in at least one edition, finishing ninth in 1986. She was competing against her daughter, Anneli, who was fourth.

Among the drivers who spread their wings a little more were Catta Lindgren, sister of Nettan, who drove in the 1988 Kemora 500km race as part of an all-female team, and Eva Bornebusch, who was part of the same team. Eva Bornebusch was also a regular in one-make racing in Sweden in the 1990s. Eva Kjellkvist-Pulls was another long-term Lady Cup competitor who was a regular face on the Swedish one-make scene for a long time afterwards.

The A112 went out of general production in 1985, which limited the Cup’s shelf life somewhat. It was replaced by the Lady Opel Cup, which used GM's Corsa.

For more information about some of the drivers in this series, click here.

List of winners:

1984 Åsa Johansson

1985 Nettan Lindgren

1986 Nettan Lindgren

1987 Nettan Lindgren

1988 Nettan Lindgren
1989 Eva Bornebusch

(Image from rejsa.nu)