Bruna Tomaselli

Bruna Tomaselli is a Brazilian driver who came to prominence making her way up the US single-seater racing ladder.

Her senior career began in 2013, racing in Brazil’s Formula Junior championship at the age of 16. This followed two years of international karting. Formula Junior appears to be a Ford-based single-seater championship and Bruna spent two seasons there. She scored one podium in her first season, then her first win in 2014. She was fourth in that year’s championship.

She first raced in South American Formula 4 in 2015. She was sixth in the championship, with several fourth places as her best result. In contrast, she survived a nasty accident at Rio Hondo. That year, she also made guest appearances in Sprint Race in Brazil.

Back at home in 2016, she continued her Formula 4 campaign. During the season, she scored five podium positions, and was fourth in the championship. The best of her results was a second place at Rivera, behind Juan Manuel Casella. Her four third places were at Pinar.

Her big project for 2017 was moving to the States in order to race in the Cooper Tires FF2000 championship. In between, she travelled to Bahrain for its round of the MRF Challenge. Her best finish was eighth.

In the USA, she was twelfth at Road America, on her way to 21st in the championship. She was driving for the ArmsUp team and completed almost all of the season.

She did another year in USF2000 in 2018, finishing 16th overall with one seventh place as her best result. This came from the first race of the year at St Petersburg. Without a series of DNFs towards the end of the season, her finishing position would have been higher.

Back home, she also competed in Formula Academy Sudamericana, finishing fifth in the Formula Renault-based series.

At the end of the year, she applied to be one of the drivers for the all-female W Series in Europe, and was placed on the initial list of 60 hopefuls. After the first selection event, she was rejected and took to social media to express her confusion and disappointment. She had been among the fastest drivers on the final “Race of Champions” task, but was not retained.

She raced in USF2000 again in 2019 for the leading Pabst Racing team. This year she was much more consistent and was a regular fixture in the top ten, as well as finishing all but one of her races. She was eighth in the championship and her best result was fifth at Mid-Ohio.

Surprisingly, she was invited back for another W Series assessment and was signed up to compete in the 2020 championship. This did not go ahead due to the coronavirus crisis, but she was allowed to race in 2021.

In August, she made a guest appearance in the Paulista Super Formula series, a Formula 3-based championship. She earned two second places at Interlagos, one from pole. Not long afterwards, she did her first sportscar race, driving a VW-engined MRX prototype in Imperio Endurance Brasil. She missed the first round but was third on her first race out at Curitiba. A non-finish and a disqualification followed, but she bounced back with a win at Curitiba and another win at Velopark, the second race from pole.

W Series was a rather indifferent experience for her. She did show some early speed with a fifth place at the Red Bull Ring, but she struggled to get into the top ten after that, apart from one ninth place in Hungary. She was 15th in the championship and may well lose her spot in 2022.

As well as F3, Bruna tried sportscar racing again in 2021. She was part of an all-female team for a round of the Porsche Endurance Challenge at Interlagos, finishing fifth in class with Bia Figueiredo and Carol Aranha. The team was entirely made up of female personnel.

In a mixed team, Bruna was ninth in the Mil Milhas Brasileiras, driving a Hayabusa-engined prototype. She raced as part of the "Fantastic Four" with Emilio Padron, Fernando Ohashi and Fernando Fortes.

Her 2022 season revolved around W Series, although the championship was shortened to seven races due to financial constraints. Bruna was assigned to the Racing X team and had a similar season to 2021. She was a promising fifth in the first race at Miami, but then lost momentum. She was twelfth in the championship.

W Series collapsed during the off-season, so Bruna changed direction completely. She entered the Brazilian Stock Car championship, which uses a stock chassis and engine. It was a fairly tough learning curve for her, but by the end of the season, she scored her best finish of fourth at Interlagos. She was eighth overall.

Her 2024 Stock Car Pro season was reduced to two guest races at Interlagos, driving a Chevrolet Cruze for the KTF team. She was 19th and 24th. For most of the season, she stayed in the second-level Stock Car championship, competing for Garra Racing. She was tenth overall, scoring one third place at Cascavel.

Prior to her motorsport career, Bruna played football to a high level and still retains an interest in the women’s game in Brazil.

(Image copyright Bruna Tomaselli)

Jessica Hawkins

Jessica (centre) on the winner's podium in 2017

Jessica Hawkins was second in the John Cooper Mini Challenge in 2017. She was a multiple race-winner in her first really successful season, finally displaying the talent she showed in a kart.

As a junior, she won several karting championships, and featured strongly in some major ones.

In the face of a series of difficult sponsorship situations, she got onto the grid for the 2014 Renault Clio Cup. This was in part thanks to winning a testing shootout organised by the BWRDC, and was helped by some further experience in the car in the 2013 Autumn Trophy. In the end, she only seems to have driven in two rounds, at Brands Hatch, but she was third and fourth. Her team-mate was Jodie Hemming, recently returned to competitive action. Jodie was acting as her driver coach too.

Later in the season, she raced in the British Formula Ford Championship, at Silverstone, scoring two tenths, and an eleventh place. She was team-mate to Michael O’Brien, a fellow youngster.

In 2015, she chose the single-seater route, and entered the MSA Formula series. This was a transitional formula between Formula Ford and Formula 4, as it would become in 2016. It was a difficult season, and she just missed out on a top-ten spot at Rockingham and Snetterton. She was 23rd overall, after competing for just over half a season. She was part of a strong field, including Lando Norris, Dan Ticktum and Enaam Ahmed.

During the winter season, she raced in the MRF Challenge in the Middle East. She managed two fifteenth places at Bahrain. These were her only two races in the championship.

Part-way through 2016, she joined Team HARD Racing for the VW Racing Cup, and was ninth and eighth at Brands Hatch, driving a Golf. She did enter the third race at Brands but did not finish. This experience put her back on her original track of saloon racing, which would pay off.

Jessica’s first race in the 2017 Mini Challenge ended in a win from pole. She followed that up with another win from the front. She aimed for a clean sweep of the Snetterton meeting, but had to settle for third in the third race. She repeated this exactly at Silverstone: two wins, two poles, then a third. She won one more race at Rockingham and earned a further six podium places from eleven races. She could have won the championship if her early momentum had lasted, but she was still a strong second in what was her first full season of competition.

Her sights are now set on a career in tin-tops and she has completed the first year of a three-year plan, which will take her into the BTCC.

This plan had a slight setback in 2018, when she did not race very much, apart from a couple of guest appearances in the Milltek Sport Volkswagen Racing Cup at Snetterton. She spent most of the year working as a stunt driver.

In 2019, she returned to single-seaters, applying successfully to enter the female-only W Series. She sometimes found herself mixed up in on-track accidents during the season itself and had a best finish of seventh, at Assen and Brands Hatch. She was eleventh in the championship and therefore invited back for 2020.

W Series was cancelled in 2020 due to the coronavirus, but Jess went back to tin-tops and managed to take a big step forward in her career. She signed a one-round deal with Power Maxxed Racing to drive their Vauxhall Astra in the BTCC and raced at Snetterton. Her best finish out of her three races was 20th, but she had been running much higher than that when she was pushed off-track by Andy Neate. She also had to contend with significant ballast in her car due to starting the season late.

Before that, she had a guest drive in the Jaguar i-Pace eTrophy, alongside her partner Abbie Eaton. She was eighth and ninth at the Berlin street circuit.

She made three further BTCC guest appearances in 2021, this time driving a Ford Focus ST run by Racing with Wera and Photon Group. Snetterton was the scene of the action again and she finished all three races, narrowly missing out on a top-twenty placing once to finish 21st.

W Series beckoned again too, but it was not a stellar season for her and she only really got on the pace towards the end, earning a sixth and fifth place at Spa and Zandvoort. She was a backmarker for much of the eight-round championship and finished eleventh overall, meaning she will not be invited back automatically.

She was also announced as a Driver Ambassador by the Aston Martin F1 team. Although this is a non-competing role at present, she travelled with the team for several events in 2021. Her stunt work, which has included appearances in a James Bond film, continued.

Her third W Series season began with a second place at Miami, but it was soon eclipsed by her first win in the British TCR series, driving a SEAT Leon for Area Motorsport and FASTR. Her win, at Oulton, was her only one of the season. She had too many non-finishes to make an impact on the final leaderboard, but she did manage a fifth and sixth at Castle Combe. She was fourteenth in the championship.

Her W Series season was also inconsistent and she was ninth after the shortened seven-race programme. This proved to be her last W Series season as the championship folded at the beginning of 2023. 

Her competitive action was UK-based in 2023. She took part in the Praga Cup, driving for the University of Wolverhampton team with Teddy Wilson. They won one race and were second in the championship. Using the same car, she entered the Zeo Prototype Cup with Shane Kelly. They were frontrunners in that series too, winning their class in five out of six races to finish second.

Away from active racing, Jessica continued to work with Aston Martin and was even allowed to test the AMR21 F1 car in September. She was the first woman to drive a current F1 car for several years. The team also gave her a job overseeing their F1 Academy entry.

She raced an Aston Martin in 2024, although not the F1 car. She drove for the Beechdean team in the British GT championship, in their Vantage. Her co-driver was Andrew Howard and she did six rounds of the nine-race season. She was 19th in the drivers' standings, with  a best result of seventh, achieved at Donington. 

(Image from www.excelr8motorsport.com)

Female Single-Seater Drivers Around the World: Spain

Carmen Boix

Carmen Jorda, Marta Garcia, Belen Garcia and Maria de Villota now have their own profiles.
This page will be refilled further when new drivers are found!

Carmen Boix (Gil) - raced in the MRF Formula 2000 Challenge in India in the 2012-2013 season. She was 24th in the championship, with a best finish of tenth. Previously, she was active in karting around Europe. In 2009, she appears to have tested a GP4 car, although she did not race it. In 2011, she was shortlisted for the Marzac Foundation’s Formula BMW sponsorship, but she did not win. At the end of 2011, she also tested a BMW for the Italian Superstars series, but again, did not race. In 2014, she was linked with a drive in a SEAT Leon. It was 2017 when she finally reappeared, driving a Ford Mustang in the Whelen NASCAR Euroseries. She was eleventh overall, with three top ten finishes: sixth at Franciacorta, ninth at Valencia and tenth at Hockenheim. She did another season in Euro NASCAR in 2018, in the Elite 2 class. Tours Speedway was her best circuit, where she earned a ninth and tenth place. She was 16th in the championship. She attempted to qualify for the all-female W Series in 2019, but was unsuccessful in the first selection.

Sara Garcia – raced in single-seaters in Spain and Portugal. She was tenth in the Spanish Master Junior Formula in 2007, driving for Emilio de Villota’s team. The following year, she raced in the Portuguese Formula Renault championship, running as “Formula Junior”, but only did two races, finishing tenth in both. Prior to her single-seater experiences, she was successful in karting championships in her home, the Canary Islands.

Nerea Marti - Spanish driver who graduated from karts to cars at the beginning of 2019. She entered the Spanish Formula 4 championship with the Praga Espana Formula de Campeones team. In her second-ever race at Navarra, she was classified second overall due to ten drivers being penalised for not reacting quickly enough to a red flag. She previously competed for the same team in karting from 2015 to 2018. She raced in the W Series in 2021 after the 2020 season was cancelled due to coronavirus and was named as one of the series' Academy drivers, who are exempt from elimination for a season. She impressed with a third place at the Hungaroring and was a regular top-ten finisher, coming fourth in the championship. She also tested an FIA F3 car. In 2022, she was invited back to race with W Series, joining the Quantfury team. She was seventh in the championship, despite podium finishes in Miami and Paul Ricard. After the collapse of W Series in early 2023, she signed for Campos Racing in the all-female F1 Academy, following some races in the Formula Winter Series. Despite a first-round disqualification, she was fourth in F1A, winning once at Paul Ricard. She combined F1A with a run in the Spanish GT Championship, winning the GT4 class in a BMW Spain-supported M4 shared with Jose Manuel de los Milagros, who had also won a Spanish Endurance title with her in 2022. In 2024, she was fourth in F1 Academy again, with third places at Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. She also had a few guest races in Spanish and NACAM F4. Even though she won a NACAM race, her career began to move again towards sportscars, probably because she would not be allowed another year in F1A. More BMW Spain support helped her to fourth place in the GT4 class of the Supercars Endurance Championship. She also tested an Andretti Formula E car in the series' Women's Test at Estoril.

(Image from http://spanishdrivers.blogspot.co.uk/)