Junko Mihara

Junko Mihara is Japanese actress and media personality who had quite a successful racing career in the 1990s, both in Japan and further afield. 

She started in touring cars in 1990 and drove in some races of the Japanese championship then and in 1991 in a TOMS Toyota Corolla. Both times, she shared a car with Masahiro Matsunaga, who was her husband. He taught her to drive a racing car earlier in their relationship. Her achievements in her first seasons were mostly finishing rather than scoring points; in 1990 her finishing record was patchy, but this improved in 1991. 

In 1992, she changed teams, driving for the Kawasho set-up, but her car was the same. Although she scored a few points, she did not enter enough races to make an impact on the championship. Her best finish was 17th at Tsukuba. 

Between 1992 and 1995, she also raced a little in Europe, entering the Spa 24 Hours each year. She was always in a Toyota, either an MR2 or a Corolla, and usually with Matsunaga. She was 16th in 1994 and 19th in 1995, and did not finish the other races. For the latter race, she was part of an all-female team with Michiko Okuyama and Kumi Sato. 

In 1996 and 1997, she raced sportscars in Japan alongside Matsunaga, in an MR2. She was not among the front-runners, although the Japanese Super GT championship at the time was very competitive. Her best finish was 20th at the Fuji Special GT Cup in 1996. Again, her finishing record was good in 1997, although she was never in contention for wins.

In 1998, she made one appearance at the Fuji GT round in a Toyota Cavalier, but was unclassified. The car was a rebadged Vauxhall and was unusual, if not particularly fast. That year, she also raced in the USA, taking part in the Toyota Long Beach Pro-Celebrity race as a pro with Kumi Sato. She was 16th.

She does not appear to have raced since then. Her 1999 divorce from Matsunaga was probably a contributing factor.

After leaving both motorsport and showbusiness behind and also recovering from cervical cancer, Junko entered politics. She stood for election for Japan’s ruling Liberal party.

(Image from /www.jiaponline.org/)

Celia Martin

Celia Martin is a French driver who raced in the 2019 Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy, competing alongside Formula E.

Prior to her first race in the electric Jaguar at ad-Diriyah in Saudi, her motorsport experience was confined to the Nurburgring, and mostly in a testing role. 

Celia moved to Germany from her home in France in 2017 in order to pursue a career in motor racing, despite not being from a traditional motorsport background. Unusually, she moved from team management to racing herself, having run a Peugeot team in the Creventic 24 Hour Series before her relocation to Adenau. 

The Ring had been her goal since first driving round it in 2014. She did try out a few races in France, but set her mind to racing in Germany and learnt German in preparation for this, as well as studying law and business.

She picked up a role as a test driver and high-speed “Ring Taxi” chauffeur with Jaguar Land-Rover. As well as giving demo rides to visiting VIPs, she worked on the Jaguar XE SUV project in a testing capacity.

Her first race in Germany was not in a Jaguar but it was at the Nurburgring. In 2017, she did one round of the RCN, which is run as a time trial rather than a wheel-to-wheel race. Results for this are elusive but she may have been driving a Peugeot for the RACECOP team.

Her first wheel-to-wheel experience on the Ring was when she entered one round of the 2018 VLN series with the Mathol team, driving a BMW M235i. 

Her Jaguar connections helped to get her a race seat in the I-Pace eTrophy at the end of 2018. She raced for the Viessmann Jaguar Germany team in the Pro-Am class. The first few rounds were something of a trial for her and the team did not attend the Sanya race in China, but she came back an improved driver. She had her best overall result in Paris, sixth, and this was followed by eighth places in Monaco and Berlin. She was fourth in the Pro-Am class.

Celia did not return to the electric series the following season and went back to her first racing love, the Nurburgring, in late 2019. She joined Luxembourgish drivers Max Lamesch and Sebastien Carcone in their Renault Megane for the fifth round, then was drafted into the “Giti Angels” all-female team led by Carrie Schreiner. The “Girls Only” car was a VW Golf and Celia shared it with Carrie and Laura Kraihamer. Celia was eighth in the SP3T class at the end of the season, despite only having raced twice but scoring one class win and one second place.

The 2020 VLN (now renamed NLS) had a delayed start due to the coronavirus epidemic. Celia and Carrie did some of its esports equivalent together before teaming up again in June and finishing second in class. They then secured two further fourth places and one sixth in SP3T, along with Laura Kraihamer.

The team encountered a long series of car troubles during the Nurburgring 24 Hours, which was red-flagged during the night due to extremely heavy rain. Despite several lengthy pitstops, Celia and her team-mates managed to finish the race in 72nd place.

Away from the Girls Only team, Celia also made a guest appearance in one VLN round for the Hanger Zero team, double-driving with Girls Only. She and her team-mates Phil Hill and Kaj Schubert were third in class.

As part of another Girls Only team, this time in an Audi R8, she won her class in the Nurburgring 24 Hours, assisted by Pippa Mann, Carrie Schreiner and Christina Nielsen. They were 45th, despite problems during the race itself. Celia also joined the team for the first round of the NLS, helping Carrie Schreiner to a class win. In a different car, a BMW M4, she helped Christina Nielsen and Phil Hill to two class second places.

She had another run with Girls Only in the Nurburgring 24 Hours, this time driving an M4. The team - Celia, Pippa Mann. Carrie Schreiner and Fabienne Wohlwend - were third in class. This was her only Nurburgring race of the year.

Late in the season, she joined the Speed Demons Delhi team for the Indian Racing League, in which four-driver teams raced motorbike-engined single-seaters on Indian street circuits. The first round was cancelled due to a string of reliability issues and crashes in practice, then Celia herself crashed hard in the second round at Madras. The season didn't really get any better for her and she did not finish any more races.

Most of 2023 was spent in the ADAC GT4 series, driving an Aston Martin Vantage with Fabienne Wohlwend. They were not hugely competitive and finished 34th in the championship. Driving the same car, they had more luck in the NLS, scoring one third place in the SP10 class. This year's Girls Only team - Celia, Fabienne, Pippa Mann and Beitske Visser - finished the Nurburgring 24 Hours, second in their class and 81st overall.

(Image from auto360.de)

Evelyn Mull

Evelyn Mull was one of the fastest of the many women drivers active on the US sportscar scene in the 1950s.

She learned to drive aged eleven but did not start racing until she was forty and married for the third time. Her husband John Mull acquired a sportscar of his own and Evelyn made plans of her own to compete in the ladies’ race held at his first meeting. She was not from a motorsport background and is usually described as a “Pennsylvania socialite”. Her prior sporting interests had been based around horses.

Wealthy and well-travelled, Evelyn had access to the European sports cars popular with the sportscar racing fraternity on both the East and West coast. Her first was a Jaguar XK120 which she debuted in the ladies’ race at Thompson, finishing second behind Carlye Ann Scott’s MG TC.

Although she continued to enter the ladies’ races popular at the time, she was soon taking her chances in the mixed fields at Thompson, as well as competing in hillclimbs alongside John.

She was one of the early members of the SCCA, which was the dominant motor club on the East coast. Within a few years, she became one of their racing instructors and assessors. Despite her love of the sport, she never worked on her own car and nor did John; they travelled with their own mechanics.

Her first win was in a 1954 Ladies’ race at Thompson, ahead of Isabelle Haskell’s OSCA. She was ninth in the CP class race at the same meeting, against a field of other XK120s. A few weeks earlier, she had her first race at Watkins Glen, a Formula Libre race. She returned to the same event in 1955 but did not finish.

By 1955 she was getting more competitive in mixed competition and finished fourth in an SCCA race at Thompson. Her career received another boost with the arrival of a Bristol-engined AC Ace for her and John part-way through 1956. Evelyn won her first race in this car, at her favourite Thompson circuit. Later in the year she was second there, racing in the same class.

She raced a works-supported Ace with John in 1957, entering that year's Sebring 12 Hours but failing to finish. Sharing a similar car with Harry Carter, she was 24th in that year’s Road America 500 Miles. This Ace belonged to Ernest MacNabb, a rare run in a car other than her own. She and John shared ownership of their cars but they preferred not to race together or against one another, according to Todd McCarthy in his book Fast Women. He describes John’s mild unease at his wife’s enthusiasm, expressed in such behaviour as insisting that she always wore skirts when in the paddock.

Evelyn was probably the better driver and she finished sixth in a one-hour race at Thompson that year to his ninth.

Lime Rock was her lucky track that year; she won an SCCA Regional race there in July and was second in a similar event later in the month. 1957 was one of her busiest years on-track and she competed most weekends between March and December, all across the Western part of the States.

She won another SCCA Regional race at Watkins Glen in 1958, from eighteen other drivers. The day before, she had been second in a Ladies’ race behind Suzy Dietrich in an Elva. Two more SCCA thirds at Lime Rock added to her podium tally.

Occasionally she competed outside America. In 1956 and 1957, she made the trip to the Bahamas for Nassau Speed Week. She was third in a Ladies’ race in 1956 and did better in 1957, coming seventh in the GT race and second in a Ladies’ race. The 1958 Speed Week was another rare occasion where she drove someone else’s car, using Don Fong’s Lotus Eleven in the ladies’ races.

The AC was sold during the summer of 1959. A newspaper report of the time joked about it being advertised as a car that had been owned by a grandmother and never been driven on the road. Evelyn did one more major race that year with Pinkie Windridge, finishing 22nd in the eight-hour “Little Le Mans” race at Lime Rock. They were driving an NSU Prinz.

After 1959, Evelyn stepped back from motorsport. The US sportscar scene was becoming professional and amateurs like her, however skilled, were being pushed out. Female drivers in particular were marginalised in favour of male pros and ladies’ races went into decline.

Away from the racetrack, Evelyn wrote a book about her fellow women on the US sportscar scene, Women In Sportscar Competition, published in 1958.


(Image from AC Owners’ Club website)

Julia Pankiewicz

Julia Pankiewicz is a Polish single-seater driver. She is most famous for racing alongside her identical twin, Wiktoria.

Julia and Wiktoria both came to prominence competing in Italy, in Formula 4. Twin female drivers have never before raced in such a championship, although they had previously competed against one another in Eastern European Junior Rotax. Julia was usually the faster driver.

Julia graduated from karting at the start of the 2015 season. She raced for the Swiss RB Racing team with Wiktoria. She had a best finish of fourteenth, achieved twice at Misano. Her final championship position was 33rd. She clinched the series’ women’s trophy after Wiktoria had to sit out the last rounds of the season, having suffered a serious accident at Adria. This was the end of the Pankiewicz twins as a sister act, although Julia continued her career.

In 2016, she did a few races in the Formula Renault Eurocup, as well as Formula Renault NEC. Her best result in the Eurocup was nineteenth at Aragon Motorland, one of three races she did there. She did slightly better in the NEC series, with a thirteenth at Hockenheim and 27th overall. Although she was not really competitive, she had a decent finishing record and was rarely last. Lando Norris was that year’s champion. 

Her 2017 season was based around the Eurocup, with only a couple of guest spots in the NEC series. Her best Eurocup result was fifteenth at Monza, and she was 30th overall. Her NEC races at Monza yielded the best results of her career: a seventh and tenth place.

Her team boss Mark Burdett described her as “a pleasure to work with” but her career petered out after 2017. She appears on the entry list for the 2018 Euroformula Open Winter Series, driving for the leading RP Motorsport team, but does not appear to have raced. 

(Image from www.motorsport.v10.pl)