Nuria Vinas

Nuria in 1968

Nuria Viñas Panades was a double winner of the Spanish women’s rally championship, in 1972 and 1973. She also won the Catalan women's championship in 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1975.

Born in Barcelona, she was from a motorsport family. Her brother Jordi was a rally driver who competed as "Jorge Chi" from the mid-1960s onwards. 

Her first steps in motorsport were apparently in 1962, when she entered the Rally Femina, which was based around Barcelona. Jordi encouraged her, according to an interview in Mundo Deportivo in 1968. The results for this all-female event are elusive, but her car was a Fiat 850, and she competed in the rally several times, possibly winning in 1963 and almost certainly winning in 1971. The rally was organised by Club 600, a Catalan motorsports club of which Nuria was a member. 

Her first rally looks to have been the Rally Invierno in 1963, where she and the SEAT were 36th. Returning to the event, she was 45th in 1964, this time in a BMW. Among her other cars was a Simca 1000, which she used for the Gerona Rally in 1965. She continued to switch between the SEAT, BMW and Fiat in 1966, with the Fiat being the quickest; she was twelfth in that year's Rally de las Tres Cuestas in it. She concentrated on smaller cars in 1967, changing between the SEAT and the Fiat. The Fiat was once again the best car for her, giving her a season's best of 18th in the Rallye Costa Brava.  In the same car, she was 23rd in the Rallye de Invierno, 19th in the Rallye Gerona and first lady in the Trofeo Maite Trepat and the Barcelona-Andorra Rally. She returned to the Barcelona-Andorra event in 1968. With the BMW and her regular co-driver Immaculada Juncosa, she won the Circuito de Llobregat Rally that year. 

At the same time, she appears in hillclimbs in Catalonia. Her first notable event was the 1964 Circuito Garraf, a hillclimb outside Barcelona. She drove a SEAT 600 and won both the novices' and the women's class. 

She and her brother sometimes entered the same events, althought they never shared a car. Both took part in the 1966 Puig Major hillclimb, both in Fiat-Abarth 850s, but in different classes.

The siblings competed against each other again in the 1967 Montseny climb. Nuria, in a Fiat-Abarth 850TC, was 40th overall, and Jordi was unplaced in his 1000cc Abarth. The following year, he had the upper hand, finishing 28th to Nuria's 43rd. She was driving a SEAT 600 again this time. 

The following year, she was the Catalan ladies' champion in hillclimbs and 32nd in the main championship.

As well as rallies and hillclimbs, she also raced on circuits, and was the first woman to participate in the Barcelona 6 Hours race, held at the Montjuich Park street circuit. Although she never raced single-seaters, she did compete at a Grand Prix weekend at least once, driving a little SEAT in the one-make Copa SEAT that ran as a support in the early 1970s.

She is most associated with a BMW 2002 Ti, and was especially effective in the women-only rallies organised in Spain in the early 1970s, but she first appears in the Spanish Touring Car Championship in it in 1970. She won her class in it in the Puig Major hillclimb, then a round of the championship. She is recorded as the winner of the 1971 Rally Femina in the BMW, and the same year, she did at least two rounds of the Sapnish Touring Car championship, finishing 16th at Montjuich and ninth at Guadalope. Her car was a Group 1-spec machine. She entered the Barcelona 3 Hours and was fifth in class. Hillclimbs were very much still a priority too, and she won her class in the La Rabassada event, after finishing second in Group 1 at Puig Major.

Her first Spanish women's championship win was also in this car. Nuria won the 1972 Rallye Femenina Saibil and the Rallye Primavera, with Maria Angeles Pujol, her regular co-driver in the middle part of her career. 

Her second women's championship in 1973 came off the back of six wins in all-female events, co-driven in the BMW by Ana Maria Garreta. She was more than twenty points ahead of her nearest rival, Marisol Rodriguez Mesa, who had only picked up one class win in the Rally of Spain, in her SEAT. Nuria's only non-win was her eighth place in the Rally Primavera-Las Palmas, which must have been a disappointment after her 1972 victory. As well as rallying, she continued to campaign her Group 1 BMW in Spanish Touring Cars, racing at Montjuich for the 2-Hour National event and finishing tenth.

The women's championship was in something of a decline in 1974, with smaller entry lists and more events running as a class in mixed rallies. Nuria only entered her BMW in one, the Jerez women's rally, which she won in the BMW, ahead of that year's champion, Yolanda. Nuria had to make do with another Catalan women's motorsport championship, which she claimed ahead of hillclimb driver Beverley Pugh.

Hers was a lengthy career, and she was still active in motorsport in the late 1970s, driving a Ford Escort in hillclimbs in Catalunya. She was 22nd in the 1978 Montseny hillclimb, returning to one of her earliest regular events. The following year, she made a last visit to Puig Major, finishing 51st.

She won a final women's rally, the Rallye Femenino Adosinda, in 1979. Her car was the Escort and she was navigated by Ana Maria Garreta, who had sat alongside her for several years. 

She died in 1998. 

(Image copyright Mundo Deportivo)

Helga Heinrich (Steudel)

Helga Heinrich, formerly known as Helga Steudel, is a German driver and motorcyclist, originally from East Germany. 

She started out in motorcycle racing in 1959, aged 20, having learned to ride at thirteen. Six years later, she became the first female rider to win a major race, at the Sachsenring. To this day, she remains the only woman to win there on two wheels. She continued to win at other circuits, usually on a 125cc MZ RE. Despite her obvious talent, women found it very difficult to be granted licenses for international racing by the FIM, so she had to stay within club competition. Her two-wheeled career ended in 1967. 

After her marriage to Dieter Heinrich, she switched to cars in 1970, using a DDR-made Melkus RS 1000 sports racer to begin with. Without a major sponsor, she took on three jobs to affford her racing, including working in a paint factory and on her family's farm.

Being an Eastern Bloc sportsperson, she competed within the Communist countries almost exclusively. Schleizer Dreieck, in East Germany, was her commonest haunt. She achieved many top-ten finishes throughout the 1970s, in the RS 1000, and later, a Spyder and a Formel Easter single-seater. As well as races, she competed frequently in hillclimbs. 

Schleiz was the scene of her first major race result, a fifth in the 1971 Bernauer Schleife race for Melkus RS 1000 cars. Ulli Melkus, from the family who had created the cars, was the winner. The following year, she seems to have competed outside Germany for the first time, taking the Melkus to Most in modern Czechia, then the Soviet Republic of Czechoslovakia. She was eighth at Most and then seventh at Piestany, in modern Slovakia, before returning home to come sixth at Schleiz.

For 1974, she switched to the Spyder Krug, another sports prototype made in the GDR. She continued to race in Czechoslovakia, although she does not appear to have visited other Eastern Bloc countries to compete. The Spyder does not seem to have been the most reliable of cars and she rarely finished this year. It was more successful in hillclimbs, with a best result of fifth at Bautzen in the GDR. That said, she had her fair share of non-finishes in speed events as well.

Another season in the Krug was mostly spent in hillclimbs. Her best result was fifth again, this time at Torun in Poland. By now, she had a sponsor, Malimo knitwear. She only used the Krug for half of the season in 1976, switching between it and a Spyder Scharfe. The Scharfe was the better car and she was third at the Annaberg hillclimb in the GDR in it. It was a car she would return to over and over again until 1980, although she did score two more third places in a Spyder Tschernoster in 1977, at Annaberg and Schwarzenberg. In hillclimbs, she also used a Lada and a later Melkus MT77 on occasion.

Her circuit racing appearances became more sporadic towards the end of the 1970s. In 1979, she was twelfth in a race at Ostrava in Czechoslovakia, driving the Spyder Scharfe. 

She first retired in 1984, only making one more appearance in 1992. However, in 2007, she came out of retirement again, initially for historic events, but more recently, in modern single-seaters. 

In 2013, she raced a Formula Renault in the ESET Eastern European championship, at the age of 75. Prior to this, she had won a hillclimb championship in 2010. The year before, she competed in a GDR-built Formel Easter Estonia 25 in the GLP Pro Series. She had raced in this Soviet single-seater championship more than 20 years earlier, when she was the only woman to take part.

Although she does not appear to have raced since 2016, she still remains Germany’s oldest female racing driver, having been active until the age of 75. Her last races were in the Carbonia Cup at the Slovakiaring, driving a Formula Renault.

(Image copyright Helga Henirich)

Aurelia Nobels

Aurelia Nobels is a Brazilian-Belgian driver born in the USA, who began racing in Danish Formula 4 in 2022, when she was fifteen. She has competed under both a Belgian and Brazilian license.

Her first race in the Danish championship at Jyllandsringen gave her a seventh place, which she improved to a sixth the next day. In an unusual move, she also entered the Brazilian F4 championship, picking up a twelfth place as her best finish at Mogi Guacu. Back in Europe, she joined the Spanish F4 series for its Spa away round, but was not competitive, only managing one 23rd place.

In July 2022, she was selected as a senior driver for the FIA’s Girls on Track initiative. This led to a run in the Italian F4 championship in 2023, along with its related Euro4 championship, for Prema. In addition to this, she was signed by the Ferrari driver academyShe was unplaced in both series. Her best finishes were two eleventh places, one in each series, at Imola and Catalunya. In Italy, she had to miss some rounds, including two of the Misano races. She had an accident in the first race and had to sit out the rest of the weekend.

In 2024, she joined Sainteloc Racing for the UAE F4 championship, in preparation for a season in F1 Academy. She was linked with a Ferrari-backed seat. Her UAE races didn't go brilliantly, with a 19th at Yas Marina her best result. She then did some Saudi F4 races and earned one third place at Losail. This was enough for eleventh in the championship.

Most of 2024 was taken up by F1 Academy, where she was twelfth for ART Grand Prix, despite several top-ten finishes, including a fifth at Zandvoort. She also found time for guest spots in Eurocup-4 and British F4, at Monza and Zandvoort. Her best finish at Zandvoort was 16th, and Monza, fourteenth.

Like many of her F1 Academy rivals, she did the 2025 winter season in Spain, competing in the Eurocup-4 winter series. ART Grand Prix ran her and two other F1 Academy drivers for a part-season. She was the best of the three, finishing 28th overall, with a best finish of fourteenth. Later in the year, she did the Mugello rounds of the Euro4 championship for AS Racing, finishing 23rd twice and 33rd once.

Her F1 Academy season, supported by Puma, was up and down, beginning badly with two DNFs at Shanghai, but ending with her first podium, a third place at Las Vegas. She was thirteenth overall and this was her last season of F1 Academy.

She left the Ferrari Driver Academy at the end of 2025 and her future plans are unknown.

(Image copyright Aurelia Nobels/Ferrari)

Lady Margaret Oldham

Margaret on the 1936 RAC Rally

Lady Margaret Oldham was a British rally driver in the 1930s. Having been born in 1878, she was fairly mature when she took up rallying and had been a widow since 1926. 

She favoured larger cars and her first competition car was a Vauxhall Coupe. 

In 1932, she took part in the RAC and Scottish rallies. This was the first year she appears on major entry lists. The 1932 RAC began in Torquay and was one thousand miles long. A newspaper report mentions lady drivers going on special diets to manage it, although it is unclear whether Margaret was one of them. A number of the female entrants were titled ladies; Mary Grosvenor and Iris Capell were peeresses in their own right, but others including Kathleen Countess of Drogheda and Aubretia, Countess Ouvaroff, had married into their titles. Margaret herself was the widow of a life peer.

Margaret's finishing position is not known, although she did reach the end of the rally. She admitted to a Torquay Times reporter that she had found the directions rather badly-marked in the Lancashire towns and had lost her way briefly somewhere near Rochdale. She and her co-driver had an alarm clock set to tell them when to switch seats, and to "ring in the lonely hours of the night to keep them cheerful".

The Scottish event was one of her favourites and she entered in 1933, 1936, 1937 and 1938. She was also fond of the RAC Rally, competing again in 1934 and 1935. By this time, she had acquired an American Hudson 8, which she used again in the 1936 RAC Rally. The Hudson was heavy and more suited to straightforward touring, but its four-litre engine gave it power: 29hp. It was described as one of the largest cars in the rally. One of its first events, the 1935 RAC, was another thousand-mile trial, which 44 women entered as drivers, Margaret among them. The London Daily News gave brief profiles of some of the female drivers, with Margaret summed up as "looks stern. Is loved by all who know her for her great charm."

The Scottish Rally of 1936 was 900 miles long and the car managed it, although it was not one of the quicker ones in the opening hillclimb. The next edition was the Coronation Rally and Margaret won the ladies' award for drivers of closed cars. In 1938, the Scottish Rally was held in conjunction with the British Empire Exhibition and had a ceremonial finish at the exhibition itself, perhaps a more fitting backdrop for a somewhat grand car.

Her rallying exploits were limited to her home country, although she took part in all the big events in England and Scotland. It is occasionally mentioned that she did some Alpine trial driving, but no results are forthcoming.

After her retirement from competition, continued to drive her own car on the road. In 1953, she had an accident in Marylebone and hit some railings, damaging the windows of the house behind. The year before, she got in trouble with the police in London for stopping outside shops on double yellow lines, and complained in the Evening Standard. She died in 1956.

(Image copyright Daily Mirror)

Nerea Marti

Nerea Marti is a Spanish driver who graduated from karts to cars at the beginning of 2019. She has raced in both F1 Academy and W Series and gone on to compete in endurance.

Her first steps in cars were in the 2019 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. The rest of the year was inconsistent and led to championship 16th, with top tens at most of the tracks the series visited, but often followed by more disappointing results. She previously competed for the same team in karting from 2015 to 2018.

After the first season of the all-female W Series concluded in 2019, she was selected for a race seat in the next edition. However, the season was cancelled due to coronavirus and Nerea returned to karting for a time once motorsport began again.

She did get to race in W Series in 2021, and was named as one of the series' Academy drivers, who were 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 with a group of female drivers, although no further drives came out of it.

In 2022, she was invited back to race with W Series, joining the Quantfury team alongside Belen Garcia, who had been a rival in the Spanish F4 championship. 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 two races in the Formula Winter Series at Valencia. 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 Catalan Endurance title with her in 2022. She had fit her CER races around her W Series commitments, and picked up six wins from eight races, finishing second in class. In 2023, they were ninth overall, with one outright podium finish.

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 at Mexico City (alongside two second places), 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.

Sportscars were her focus for 2025, and she did almost a full season of the Supercars Endurance Series in a BMW M4, sponsored by BMW Promotion. Nerea and her team-mate Juan Maria de los Milagros won one race at Valencia, but they were only 15th in the championship as their other results were not as stellar.

(Image copyright Jason Vian/Vogue)

Karen Gaillard

Karen Gaillard is a Swiss driver who races sportscars internationally, having begun in touring cars.

2019 was her first season in cars. Her first steps up from karting were to enter the Cupra Young Driver Challenge in her home country, finishing third. Not long after, she made her TCR debut at the Nurburgring with Topcar Sport. Unfortunately, she spun on the first lap and picked up two penalties. She did better in the second race, finishing ninth. Her car was a Cupra TCR.

She returned to the circuits in 2020 for the Monza 12 Hour race, again driving for the Topcar team as part of her Cupra prize. She and her two team-mates were thirteenth in the first section of the race and twelfth in the second. The team was then third in class, fifth overall in the 16 Hours of Hockenheim. This was the year of the pandemic, so her season was curtailed

Her first taste of prototype power also came in 2020. She took part in the first round of the Spanish Endurance Championship, driving a Vortex V8 in the GT class for Lionel Amrouche's team. Her two races were at Navarra and she was seventh and fourteenth in her class.

She continued to race in the 2021 24H series, but was now driving the Vortex in the GTX class. Paired with Lionel Amrouche himself, she was second in class at Dubai and third in both Mugello races. She was fifth in her class championship.

The MitJet Trophy in France was her next destination. This is a silhouette formula, combining aspects of prototypes and touring cars. Karen's best finish was sixth in an away round at Catalunya and she was eighteenth overall. She also did some rounds of the Benelux MitJet Trophy.

2023 was better and she was second in the Endurance Prototype section of the Ultimate Cup in Europe, driving a Nova Proto with Gregory de Sybourg. They were seventh in the overall championship, with a best finsh of fourth at Estoril. A bad finish at Estoril dropped them down slightly.

For 2024, she was signed by the Iron Dames team for the Le Mans Cup, alongside Celia Martin. Driving a Lamborghini Huracan, they were sixth in the GT3 class, with one podium finish at Paul Ricard. They were seventh and 16th at the Le Mans rounds themselves.

With a different team, but the same car, she also tackled the Ultimate Cup again, this time with Iko Segret and Marc Faggionato. Again, Paul Ricard was her best circuit and she was fifth there. She and her two team-mates were eleventh in their class and 16th in the overall Prototype championship, not helped by a non-finish at Magny-Cours.

Her time as an Iron Dame continued in 2025, as a member of their IMSA squad and driving solo in the Carrera Cup France. The latter came after winning a young driver shootout. The IMSA season was cut short to a single run in the Daytona 24 Hours, where she and her team-mates were eighth in the GTD class and 33rd overall. The French Carrera Cup was a challenge and her best result by far was a seventh place at Valencia. She also did some rounds in the Swiss Porsche Cup and the Porsche Sprint Challenge Southern Europe.

(Image copyright Charly Lopez/DPPI)

Geraldine Hedges

Geraldine Hedges raced in and around Brooklands in the 1930s, normally as "Miss G Hedges".

She first appears in the entry lists in the JCC’s High Speed Trial, in 1932, driving a Riley, but she was most associated with Talbot cars, one of which she owned jointly with Patricia McOstrich. Her motor racing career did not begin until she was in her early forties. A report on her garage business from 1931 states that she entered a ladies' race at Brooklands that year, although the result is not forthcoming.

In 1932, she scored her first Brooklands win, in a Talbot 90, the Sports Long Handicap at the Inter-Club Meeting. This would appear to be the shared car, as Patricia McOstrich drove it in the Five Lap Handicap at the same meeting. That summer, they had a similar arrangement at the Guys Gala meeting; Grace drove in the Duchess of York's Race for Lady Drivers, finishing eighth, while Patricia took on the Women's Automobile and Sports Association's all-female handicap. 

The Hedges/McOstrich/Talbot partnership seems to end after 1933, although Geraldine and Patricia remained close and continued to drive the same cars. They also ran a garage in London together, from at least 1931. Newspapers of the time make pointed references to the pair being "good friends", which may have been a euphemism for "romantic partners". They did live together in London from at least 1927. They sometimes competed with both in the car, like when they entered the Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb in June 1932. Their "took a corner too fast and crashed their car" but were unhurt.

They were joined in the Talbot by Lady Iris Capell for the 1932 RAC Rally, which ran for 1000 miles and started from Torquay. Ther are pictures of two dogs called Tippy and Dingo who accompanied the three drivers, but their finishing position is not forthcoming. They were part of a three-car WASA team, with Margaret Allan's Lagonda and Paddie Naismith in a Standard.

The pair's next car was a Singer, which Geraldine first drove in a speed trial at the 1935 JCC Members' Day, held at Brooklands. Although Patricia also competed in it from 1934 , they didn't keep the car for very long and it was traded in for a Frazer Nash-BMW for the 1936 season. As part of a three-car team she led herself, Geraldine was eighth in that year's Light Car Club Relay, also at Brooklands. The other two cars were driven by Kay Petre and Lady Dorothy Makins. The following month, she was back at Brooklands for the JCC Members' Day.

Patricia McOstrich carried on racing the Frazer Nash until the outbreak of World War II, but Geraldine's name disappears from the entry lists after 1936. The 1939 England and Wales Register has them living separately by then, Geraldine with the widowed Dorothy Makins.

She had been an ambulance driver during WWI and served with the Scottish Women's Hospital under Elsie Inglis, rising to the rank of Chief Transport Officer. She worked in London, Russia, Romania and finally Serbia, where she contracted malaria and was invalided home in 1918. 

Later, she worked as a "motor consultant", advising her customers on car purchases, modifications and repairs. She opened her London garage in 1935 by holding a well-publicised party in it, with guests "resting their cocktail glasses on car wings" and the space especially decorated. Her guests included Kay Petre, Brooklands scrutineer Hugh McConnell and Baron Wolfgang Putlitz, a British-based German diplomat who spied on behalf of the British government.

After 1936, she appears to retire from public life. She died in 1968.

(Image copyright The Sketch)