Catie Munnings won the European Ladies’ Rally Championship in 2016, aged eighteen and in only her second season of rallying.
She started in 2015, driving a Peugeot 106 in British club rallies, with her father Chris as her co-driver. Chris used to run the Brands Hatch and London rally schools, so Catie grew up around rally cars from a very young age.
Her best finish was 26th in the Lynn Stages Rally. During the season, she tested a Peugeot, and so impressed watching team managers that they decided to put her straight into the European Championship the following season. In order to be eligible, she needed to have completed six rallies, so she did the Donington Park and Red Dragon events near the start of the year, to add to her four finishes in 2015.
Her ERC car was a Peugeot 208, co-driven by the more experienced German, Anne Katharina Stein. She won two Ladies ERC awards, in the Ypres Rally and the Liepāja Rally in Latvia. In Belgium, she was 65th, seventh in the Junior class and eleventh in ERC3. Her Coupe des Dames was assured when Melissa Debackere retired with accident damage. In Latvia, she was 25th overall, ninth in the ERC3 class, and eighth in the Junior class. She was 16th in the Junior standings at the end of the year, and won the Ladies’ championship.
In 2017, she declined a university place in favour of continuing her rally career. In June 2016, she had hurried back from Ypres in order to take an A-level exam.
Catie’s 2017 season was her second in the ERC with the Saintéloc Junior team. At the beginning of the season, she retired from the Azores Rally after an accident, and finished the Islas Canarias Rally in 68th place, out of 89 finishers. She did three more ERC rallies, the best of which was her last event of the season, the Roma Capitale Rally. She was 25th overall, second lady, and seventh in the Junior Under 27 class. Tamara Molinaro took her Ladies' crown, but she was the runner-up at the end of the year.
She was third in the 2018 ERC3 class, driving the Sainteloc Peugeot again. Her best overall finish was 17th in the Rally Liepaja. She was also 26th in Rally Poland.
At the end of 2018, she announced that she had joined the Red Bull extreme sports family, the first female rally driver to do so.
She continued to rally the Peugeot in 2019, although it was now run by the Peugeot Rally Academy. It was not a vintage season for her in the ERC, where she contested the ERC3 class with Veronica Engan as co-driver. Katie crashed out of the Azores Rally then had to withdraw from the Canary Islands event as she was unwell. Her best finish was 36th in the Rally Liepaja in Latvia and she picked up an ERC Ladies' trophy for her efforts.
There was not much in the way of rallying for her in 2020, partly due to the coronavirus crisis. She entered Rally Sweden in a Ford Fiesta with Swedish co-driver Ida Lidebjer-Granberg and finished the event in 42nd place after a penalty. During the winter season she also competed in the GP Ice Race event in Austrian, driving a Bentley Continental GT for the Bentley team.
She was third in the 2018 ERC3 class, driving the Sainteloc Peugeot again. Her best overall finish was 17th in the Rally Liepaja. She was also 26th in Rally Poland.
At the end of 2018, she announced that she had joined the Red Bull extreme sports family, the first female rally driver to do so.
She continued to rally the Peugeot in 2019, although it was now run by the Peugeot Rally Academy. It was not a vintage season for her in the ERC, where she contested the ERC3 class with Veronica Engan as co-driver. Katie crashed out of the Azores Rally then had to withdraw from the Canary Islands event as she was unwell. Her best finish was 36th in the Rally Liepaja in Latvia and she picked up an ERC Ladies' trophy for her efforts.
There was not much in the way of rallying for her in 2020, partly due to the coronavirus crisis. She entered Rally Sweden in a Ford Fiesta with Swedish co-driver Ida Lidebjer-Granberg and finished the event in 42nd place after a penalty. During the winter season she also competed in the GP Ice Race event in Austrian, driving a Bentley Continental GT for the Bentley team.
Later in the year, she was announced as one of the drivers for Alejandro Agag's Extreme E championship, where mixed teams of two drivers tackle off-road circuits in remote locations. She raced for Andretti United Extreme E with Timmy Hansen.
She and Timmy won the Greenland round of the championship, the Glacier ePrix, and further podium positions in Saudi and the UK helped her to third in the championship. Timmy and Catie were often not the quickest in qualifying, but performed better in the races themselves.
It wasn't quite as good a season for the Andretti pair in 2022. Despite some good performances in qualifying and a Crazy Race win in Sardinia, they only managed one podium position, a third place in Sardinia following their Crazy Race win. They were ninth in the drivers' championship.
Driving solo, she made one guest appearance in a stage rally, driving a Land Rover in the Cambrian Rally in Wales. She was eleventh, with co-driver Claire Williams. She also entered on WorldRX round in Sweden, finishing eighth overall in the RX2e class.
Another season in Extreme E with Timmy Hansen was an up-and-down experience. The pair were second once in Scotland and third once in Sardinia, but a qualifying crash in Chile meant that they had to pull out, dropping them to seventh in the championship.
She also continued in rallycross in 2023, doing the first half of the RX2e series for the Swedish YellowSquad team, driving the Zeroid X1 electric car. The best of her three finishes was a seventh place in Norway.
As well as rallying, Catie had a burgeoning media career. She was the presenter of "Catie's Amazing Machines", a show for preschoolers about cars, aircraft and other machinery.
(Image from http://www.sportsister.com)
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