Pascale Neyret

Pascale Neyret rallied in France in the 1980s, having got into professional competition through the 1984 Citroen Total Trophy.

She had grown up around rallying as the daughter of Bob Neyret, creator of the all-female Team Aseptogyl. Born in 1962, she was a teenager when the early Aseptogyl rally teams were assembled and when Aseptogyl squads featured at Le Mans. The experience seems to have had an impression on her. She was always sporty but had no grand ideas of becoming a professional sportswoman. Instead, she studied and trained to become a journalist, writing for the likes of Paris Match. 

She was 23 when she entered the Citroen Total Trophy, an all-female championship, driving Citroen’s new Visa Mille Pistes in six rallies across France. At the time, she was working in the Citroen press office.

She was not one of the front-runners, although she did manage a 24th place on the Tour de France, second of the Total Trophy drivers behind Andree Andrina.

Although she was not one of the winners of the Citroen prize drive, she returned to the stages in 1985, having decided to give up her job at Citroen and become a professional driver. She had picked up some sponsors and was ready to attack the French championship. This time, her car was a Renault 5 Turbo. She entered her first World Championship rally, the Tour de Corse, and was 26th overall, second in class. Her best finish was a 16th place in the Rally of Aquitaine, one of two top-twenty finishes that year, the other being a 20th spot in the Rallye d’Antibes, a European Championship round.

Her career took both a step forward and a step back in 1986. Forward, as in her results improved, but backwards in that she went back to the Citroen Visa. She was French Ladies’ rally champion at the end of the year.

Her best overall result was a fifteenth place in the Tour de France, which also counted for the European championship. She performed strongly on both asphalt and gravel, with a 16th place in the Mille Pistes Rally and 17th in the Rallye d’Antibes. For her first overseas rally, she chose the Acropolis in June. As it often is, the Greek gravel classic was a real car-breaker. Pascale was one of the 30% of drivers who got to the end. She was 22nd, second in class.

This was her last season in a Citroen. In 1987, she had her first drive in a Lancia Delta HF, a marque she would use for the next four seasons. Her programme was based around the WRC, albeit only a limited one. Her first event in the Lancia was the 1987 Acropolis, which she could not finish. Her next attempt at the Acropolis also ended in retirement, but she did finish a pleasing 19th in the 1988 Monte Carlo Rally, earning a Coupe des Dames. 

She also tried circuit racing in 1987, in the form of the Renault 5 Turbo Cup. She was 21st in the championship. 

Her first attempt at the Sanremo Rally in October 1988 yielded a finish, in 33rd place. This was another rally with more retirees than finishers. Her car this time was a Lancia Delta Integrale, although still in Group N trim.

She entered two more Monte Carlo rallies in the Delta and finished both, although she did not top her 1988 top-twenty. In 1989. She drove on the RAC Rally for the first time and was 39th out of 84 finishers. Her second attempt at the Sanremo Rally in 1990 ended in a 22nd place. 

The main part of her career finishes here, having lost her main sponsor Danone. At around this time, she reprised her studies and qualified as a lawyer.

She did make a couple of appearances in a Suzuki Swift a few years later. She competed in the 1993 Cyprus Rally and the 1994 Rally of Lebanon but did not finish either. Her long-term navigator Carole Cerboneschi accompanied her on these two outings; the pair worked together almost exclusively from 1986. 

She is now the director of a legal firm in France and still competes occasionally in historic rallies.