Delia Borges

 

Delia Borges is believed to be Argentina’s first female racing driver. 

Delia was from Buenos Aires and did not start racing until she was 50, although she may have competed as a speedway rider prior to that.

She took part in the Argentine touring car championship in 1951, entering seven races. This included the Argentine Touring Car Grand Prix, a multi-day road race with 199 starters. She was not classified at the end, possibly due to some irregularities with her car, a Ford-engined Chevrolet. 

Her best recorded finish was 21st, driving a Chevrolet in the Mil Milhas Argentina, held on the Buenos Aires street circuit. Her co-driver was Manuel Arrouge, who had raced since the late 1920s. He was a policeman and this may have connected him to Delia, who was believed to have worked for the Peronist secret police in Argentina.

Later, in 1954, she registered as an entry for the Carrera Panamericana, but did not race. Newspaper reports in the USA suggest that she put her name down for the event but did not even have a car. She eventually chose one and was due to start in the “small stock” class, but her Argentine racing license had expired. The El Paso Times on November 19th that year describes her selling her house to afford the entry fees and travelling to Mexico City to bargain with officials. She then apparently “went into hysterics and lost consciousness” before being moved to hospital to recover. The same article claims that she gave up a job with the Argentine Secret Service. 

Other sources have her sending her mechanic to the USA to buy a car with the proceeds of her house sale, although she did not know which car he had bought.

Sometimes, she is claimed to be a driver who raced under the pseudonym “Julia Lagos” later in the 1950s and up to 1961, but this apparently stems from an error; Julia Lagos may well have been another woman called Julia Sivori de Montenegro. 

She died in 1961.

Marta Garcia

 

Marta Garcia is a Spanish single-seater racer, currently active in Europe, and a former Renault Sport junior.

Her senior career began very early, at sixteen. Her first time out in a single-seater was a Prema test in 2016. That year, she raced in the second half of the Spanish Formula 4 championship. She was eighth overall, with five fifth places as her best result. Her lowest finish was eighth. This followed on from a karting career which included two championship wins in 2015. She started racing at ten.

She intended to race in Formula 3 in 2017, but had another season in F4 instead, driving for MP Motorsport. She was ninth in the Spanish championship, normally finishing in the top ten and with a high point of fifth, at Jerez. Midway through the season, she also raced in Russia, taking part in the Moscow rounds of the SMP F4 championship. She finished two of her three races, with a best finish of sixth.

Marta caught the attention of the Renault Sport development team very quickly and she was signed up as one of their drivers after her 2016 results. This was a short-lived arrangement; they were unconvinced by her performances in 2017 and dropped her at the end of the year.

She returned to karting for a year, competing in Spain and Europe in the KZ2 class. Having lost her Renault support, she struggled financially. As well as getting involved in senior karting again, she enrolled at university.

At the start of 2019, she qualified for the all-female W Series, coming through three rounds of qualification. Her season started well with a third at a wet Hockenheim and she subsequently won one race at Norisring. She was fourth in the championship after a somewhat inconsistent season; Hockenheim and Norisring were here only podium positions.

For 2020, her season was meant to include W Series and Formula Renault Eurocup. W Series was cancelled due to coronavirus and her Eurocup entry did not happen. She returned to W Series in 2021, but was not quite on the pace for most of the eight-race season. Her best result was third at Spa, but this was one of only two top-tens that year and she was twelfth in the championship. She later explained that she was suffering from mental health problems and struggling to balance racing and her studies.

She improved again towards the end of the shortened 2022 W season, starting from pole in Singapore and hanging on for third place. Just before, she had been fourth at the Hungaroring. Her final championship position was sixth.

The implosion of W Series at the start of 2023 encouraged her into F1 Academy, another all-female championship using F4 cars, despite this being a slight backward step. Driving for the Prema team, she won the first championship with seven race victories. Her prize drive for 2024 is a seat with the Prema team for the FRECA championship.

(Image from denia.com)

Nadege Ferrier (Washer)

 

Nadege (left) with Gilberte Thirion and the Renault Dauphine

Nadege Ferrier, also known as Nadege Washer, was a Swiss driver who competed extensively in sportscar events in Europe in the 1950s. 

She began competing in hillclimbs, something she would return to throughout her career.

From 1954, she often partnered Gilberte Thirion in races and rallies, co-driving her to victory in the 1956 Tour de Corse. She had been an effective co-driver to Gilberte since 1954, when she helped pilot her Gmund Porsche 356 to sixth overall in the Randonnee des Routes Blanches in Belgium and fourth in the Soleil-Cannes Rally. The two women probably met via family connections; Nadege’s first husband Jacques Washer was a sometime rally driver and a cousin to Olivier Gendebien, Le Mans winner, team-mate and boyfriend of Gilberte for some time.

She and Gilberte shared cars, including the Tour de Corse Renault Dauphine and the Porsche 356 she drove on the 1960 Nürburgring 1000km. Their first major race together was the 1955 Mille Miglia, driving a Gordini T15S. Gilberte owned the car jointly with Annie Bousquet, who was down as the car’s entrant and had shared it since 1954, but had largely distanced herself from Gilberte by now. 

They travelled extensively together, taking the Dauphine to Sebring for the 1957 12 Hour race and finishing 35th, second in class. They were supported by the Renault factory.

She sometimes raced with other drivers, like when she and esteemed journalist Bernard Cahier contested the 1956 Mille Miglia in a Dauphine. She had intended to compete with Gilberte, but her usual team-mate decided quite late on to tackle the Italian classic by herself. Nadege knew that Cahier, another recipient of a works Dauphine, was looking for a co-driver and the pair joined forces.

The Tour de France Auto was one of her favourite events and she entered at least five times, between 1958 and 1962. Her best finish was sixth in 1961, assisted by Ginette Derolland. She excelled in long-distance multi-stage road races and was fourth in the 1959 Mille Miglia. Her car, a Porsche 356, was the first non-Ferrari home.

The 356 remained her favoured personal car for the rest of her career, at least when she was driving herself.

After Gilberte retired, Nadege continued to compete. She and Paul Frere raced a 356 in the 1959 Nürburgring 1000km, coming in 21st. The same year, she partnered the flamboyant French driver, Annie Soisbault, for the Monte Carlo Rally. Annie was part of the Triumph team that year.

The following year, she partnered Heinz Schiller, driving for Ecurie Leman. They were 16th in the 1960 Nurburgring 1000km and fifth in the 2000cc GT class. Unfortunately, the pair parted ways after the Trophee d’Auvergne at Clermont-Ferrand. Nadege had a big crash in the team’s 356B and it was severely damaged.

Back in her own Porsche, she did another Tour de France with Annie Spiers and then went on to the best result of her career: second in the Coupes du Salon at Montlhery. 

Later in her career, she also returned to hillclimbing, and was seventh in the 1961 Col de la Faucille event.

The Women's Rally in Ena

 

The Women’s Rally in Ena is a women-only stage rally that takes place every year in and around the city of Ena, Japan. It began in 2018 at the Women in Motorsport L1 Rally and assumed its current name in 2020. It takes place towards the end of the year and is a standalone event, rather than a round of a championship.

It runs over a single day and has a compact, although multi-stage format. 

Drivers must be female, although men are allowed to take part as co-drivers. Entry requirements for drivers are fairly basic and correspond to those of Japan’s Monte Carlo Auto Sport Club, the organiser of Japanese championship rallies.

The majority of drivers at Ena are Japanese, although occasional crews from China and Taiwan have taken part, most notably Mingwei Hung of Taiwan who competes regularly in Japan. She was third in the 2019 event.

Drivers have a variety of experience levels, from first-timers to regulars in the Japanese championship. Cars are similarly varied and included Toyota GT86s, Mitsubishi Lancers and small cars such as the Toyota Vitz.

The rally seems to have begun as part of a series of preparations for Rally Japan being held in and around Ena in 2018.

In 2021 it was combined with the MASC Rally, an open event, but it went back to a standalone rally in 2022.

Winners

2018 ?

2019 Hiroko Menjo/Yuta Nakamura (Toyota Vitz)

2020 Saori Ishikawa/Suguru Kawana (Toyota GT86)

2021 Saori Ishikawa/Suguru Kawana (Toyota GT86)

2022 Saori Ishikawa/Suguru Kawana (Toyota GT86)

2023 Saori Ishikawa/Takahiro Yasui (Toyota GT86)

Emily Linscott

 

Emily Linscott is an ambitious single-seater racer from the UK who began her career very young.

She first raced a car in 2017 when she competed in the last three rounds of the Ginetta Junior championship. This was only her second season in motorsport full stop, having taken up karting in 2016, aged 13. She also had a shaky start in cars; only the second time she drove on a circuit, she was taken off at Snetterton by an F3 car. The Ginetta was written off and she had to have a spare car brought from the factory.

Her best Ginetta Junior overall finishes were a pair of twelfth places at Brands Hatch and Silverstone, although she scored far better in the rookie rankings. 

Richardson Racing saw her potential and she was signed by the team for the 2018 Ginetta Junior season, earning a best finish of ninth and 16th in the championship. This was in spite of a crash in practice at Knockhill which left her with heavy bruising. The car’s brakes failed going into the hairpin and Emily narrowly avoided going into the barrier head-on. After seeking clearance from the track medics, she was back on the circuit for qualifying and her two races.

At the end of the season she travelled to Malaysia for a guest appearance in the Southeast Asia Formula 4 championship, finishing seventh twice at Sepang even though her car had gearbox and electrical problems. She did not finish the third race of the meeting, having collided with another driver while running in second place. 

In 2019, she travelled to the USA at weekends for the Lucas Oil Formula Car race series, where she was being mentored by Pippa Mann. She was eighth in the championship, with two second places at NCM Motorsports Park. At the end of the year, she was third in the series' Scholarship shootout. She also took part in a couple of rounds of the Dunlop Endurance Championship with Peter Bassill, driving his Ginetta G55 at Oulton Park. They won their class in both of their races. 

Her focus switched again to single-seaters for 2020 and she stayed in America for the Lucas Oils Formula Car Championship, supported by Indycar driver Pippa Mann. She was seventh in the championship, with one podium finish at New Jersey. 

She is racing in US F4 in 2021, driving for Teena Larsen’s Kiwi Motorsport. Once again, she is being supported by Pippa Mann and her Shift Up Now initiative. Part of Emily’s season is being financed through crowdfunding and the rest by a scholarship from PMH Powering Diversity.

Her time training in the US seems to have paid off; her third race at Road Atlanta gave her a debut top-ten when she finished eighth. She also impressed by moving strongly up the field after qualifying problems.

She did complete 14 of the 17 rounds of the championship, but as she was gathering sponsorship on a race-by-race basis, there was no budget for testing. As a British citizen, she was also unable to undertake paid work in the US. She was 23rd in the championship and later admitted that her time in the States had taken its toll on her mental health. She is currently taking a break from competition.

(Image copyright Emily Linscott)