Women drivers in the Sepang 1000km

 

Faye Kusairi, Nurul Husna Nasharuddin and Leona Chin in 2019

The Sepang 1000km is an annual race for touring cars, normally lasting somewhere between eight and nine hours. It evolved from the Merdeka Millennium Endurance race, held at the same circuit, which included both saloons and sportscars and ran over twelve hours. It was originally run to celebrate the festival of Merdeka (Malaysian independence day).

Cars are limited to 1900cc and are mostly models from Asian manufacturers, including Malaysia’s own Proton.

Women have started every single edition of the race. For several seasons, the Red Bull Rookies team fielded an all-female crew. The 1000km’s first female winner was Faye Kusairi in 2016, driving a Proton as part of a four-person team.

All known women entrants are listed below, although there may be others I have not identified due to language barriers. In the case of a mixed team, the woman’s name always comes first and male drivers’ names are in italics.

2009 

Leona Chin/Puteri Ayu Jasmin/Diana Chin/Nur Hayati Omar (Honda DC2) - 21st

Carmen Lim/Akina Teo/Amir - (Proton Satria) - DNF

2010

Philippa Yoong/Hiroko Nakamura/Frank Yee (Proton Satria Neo) - 15th

Puteri Ayu Jasmin/Noradzlianayati Abdul Radzak/Carmen Lim/Melline Jaini (Honda DC2) - 28th

2011

Puteri Ayu Jasmin/Emmiline Ang/Fauziah Haziz (Honda DC2) - 15th

Hiroko Nakamura/Eric Yeo/Melvin Choo (Proton Satria) - DNF

Amirah Mokhtar/Siti Shahkirah Shaharul/Mark Darwin (Proton Satria) - DNF

2012

Melissa Huang/Siti Zirwatul (Proton Satria) - 13th

2013

Siti Shahkirah Shaharul/Siti Zirwatul Irdah (Proton Satria Neo) - 11th

2014

Nurul Husna Nasharuddin/KJ Yee/YC Foo - (Proton Satria Neo) 9th

Siti Shahkirah Shaharul/Illy Aquila/Geraldine Read (Proton Satria Neo) - 12th

2015

Nurul Husna Nasharuddin/YC Foo/KJ Yee/Nasharuddin (Suzuki Swift) - 8th

Geraldine Read/Wong Yat Fan (Suzuki Swift) - DNF

2016

Faye Kusairi/Kefili Othman/Djan Ley/Zizan Razak (Proton Suprima S) - winners

2017

Leona Chin/Kenneth Shak/Woo Siew Chong/Chong Yee Hing (Suzuki Swift) - 9th

Rina Ito/Tomokazu Sato/Ken Foo Kwok Hsing (Toyota Vios) - 16th

2018

Leona Chin/Dato Nasri Said/Kefili Othman/Alifa Hamdan (Toyota Vios) - 7th

Joan Lee/Steven Wan/Goh Eng Peng (Toyota Vios) - 18th

Nurul Husna Nasharuddin/Shasha Shafie/Boey Chai (Suzuki Swift) - 31st

2019

Leona Chin/Nurul Husna Nasharuddin/Faye Kusairi (Proton Saga) - 6th

Angeline Lee/Siti Shahkirah Shaharul (Toyota Vios) - 28th

2020

No race held

2021

Leona Chin/Mohd Nasri Bin Md Said/Yik Choon/Akina Teo (Suzuki Swift) - winners

Natasha Seatter/Nurul Husna Nasharuddin/Muizuddin Musyaffa (Honda City) - 29th

Dilys Lee/Alfred Chong Seong Huat/Choo Chia Chin (Proton Satria Neo) - 30th

Shasha Shafie/Fikri Rahmin/Syafiq Samsudin (Toyota Vios) - 31st

2022

Rina Ito/Takahisa Ohno/Karurosu Honda/Ng Kim Ngee (Suzuki Swift) - 13th

Nurul Auni Nasharuddin/Mohd Yuszaidi/Nasharuddin Abd Aziz (Toyota Vios) - 33rd

Siti Shahkirah Shaharul/Monica Picca/Zulaikha Ahmad (Suzuki Swift) - 42nd

Leona Chin/Adele Lew (Toyota Vios) - 44th

Akina Teo Chai Yong/Eddie Lew Karwai (Toyota Vios) - DNF

2023

Gladys Lam/Roni Risman/Azmeer Yusri Yusof (Suzuki Swift) - 32nd

Nurul Auni Nasharduddin/Loke Yin Yi (Toyota Vios) - 37th

Vicky Law(?)/Ng Teck Ming/Wai Siu Kit/Wong Ka Chun Kendrew (Suzuki Swift) - 46th

Leona Chin/Mark Chew Shin Wong/Danny Chin Hwa Lip (Suzuki Swift) - 58th

(Image copyright Proton)

Natalia Kowalska

 

Natalia Kowalska is a Polish driver best known for racing in the revived Formula Two championship in 2010. 

Her F2 campaign came after sitting out the 2009 season due to lack of funds. Her best finishes were a ninth and tenth at Algarve and she was 19th overall. 

Prior to this, she did a part-season in the 2008 Formula Star Mazda championship in the USA, managing one tenth place at Mosport out of four finishes. She was driving for John Walko Racing, having taken over from Filipina driver Michele Bumgarner.

Her American sojourn was only her second year of circuit racing. Her first was in 2007, when she had a part-season in Northern European Formula Renault and two races in the Formula Renault Eurocup. She managed to score a few points in the former. 

In 2011, she drove in Formula Two again, but only took part in four races due to injuries sustained in the previous season. She had crashed three times in 2010. Further neck injuries from a road traffic accident meant that she did not compete in 2012, although a prospective GP3 drive was mentioned in Polish media.

She was involved in karting in 2016, mentoring and instructing younger drivers. Her own karting record is quite impressive, with a Polish ICA title in 2005 and two Junior ICA runner-up spots in Polish championships in 2002. She followed a fairly normal single-seater path, switching from karts to cars at 17.

In 2019, she attempted to qualify for the W Series and reached the second round of assessments, but was not chosen to race. Shortly after, she said on social media that she had only entered to see if she was still competitive and did not think she would get through.

She has since returned to working with young karters.

Rhea Sautter

 

Rhea Sautter races historic saloons and sportscars, mainly in Europe.

She has been competing in historics since 2010, having grown up in a historic racing family with several cars at their disposal. Her father Stefan Sautter also races, and they sometimes compete together.

Her main car is a turquoise 1961 Jaguar E-Type, which has been run by Gotcha Racing and also her family team. She raced often in the Historic Touring & GT category, and was seen in action at the Nürburgring’s Oldtimer Grand Prix. 

After a solid start in the car, she paired up with British racer Andy Newall in 2015 and formed a strong team capable of top-three finishes. One of their highlights was a pole position in the 2017 Jaguar Challenge at the Spa 6 Hours, which led to a second place in a field of 33 cars. They repeated this finish in 2018 and perhaps could have won, had Rhea herself not helped to change a condenser on winner Marcus de Oeynhausen’s car. She has said in interviews that the Spa 6 Hours is her favourite event.

Since 2015, the Sautter E-Type has been a regular entrant in the Masters Gentlemen Drivers Pre-’66 GT series, racing at Zandvoort, Brands Hatch, Estoril and Imola.

In 2015, she raced in Australia for the first time, taking part in the Phillip Island Historic Touring Car Championship. Her car was a Ford Mustang and she was eleventh overall. On her next visit to Australia, she took her E-Type to the Phillip Island Classic and finished 25th overall, driving solo. She has continued to make trips Down Under in both the Jaguar and an Austin A30, which she raced in 2017. As well as Phillip Island, she has raced at Winton for the Goldfields Cup, driving the Jaguar in 2019.

She raced the A30 in the UK in 2018, including runs in the Jack Sears Memorial Trophy at Goodwood and the HRDC race at Silverstone. 

Rhea was still racing the E-Type with Andy Newall in 2021. The pair were tenth in the Jaguar Classic Challenge at Thruxton in June. They won their class in the 2022 Le Mans Classic and raced at Goodwood and the Algarve Classic Festival in 2023.

Image copyright Balz Schreier

Alexandra Hammersley

 

Peugeot 203 in rally trim

Alexandra Hammersley was a French driver who entered both races and rallies. Her British name came from her husband, who was also a rally driver.

She was a regular in rallies in France and Europe in the 1950s, often with her daughter, Genevieve, as her navigator. 

In 1950, she co-drove for her husband in the Liège-Rome-Liège Rally. She entered the event for the first time in 1951, sharing a Peugeot with Ginette Francois-Sigrande.

Genevieve first joins her mother later that year. In 1951, they were 40th in the Tour de France, driving a Peugeot 203. In the 1952 Tour, they were 50th. 

They entered the 1953 Monte Carlo Rally together, but retired shortly after the start when Genevieve Hammersley was hit by a bicycle. They had arrived on time from their start point at Lisbon but the accident happened at Cannes, not far away. Genevieve was taken to hospital.

The same year, they were 19th overall in the ADAC-Rallye Travemunde and second in the Paris-St. Raphaël, driving a Lancia Aurelia. This was her second go at the women-only rally, having finished sixth in the Peugeot in 1951. 

An outing in the Aurelia for the Alpine Rally ended in retirement. Driving the Peugeot 203, the mother-daughter team finished 72nd in the Tulip Rally, starting from Paris.

In 1951, Alexandra was also sixth in the Bol d’Or endurance race in Paris, driving a Peugeot 1.5. She only raced occasionally on circuits.

She disappears from the entry lists after 1953. Other than the accident to Genevieve, Alexandra’s career went largely unremarked-upon in the French press. Her origins and later life are a mystery and no photos of her have come to light.

Christine Giampaoli Zonca

 

Christine Giampaoli Zonca, also known as Christine GZ, is best known as being one of the first drivers in the debut season of Extreme E, an electric off-road championship.

Christine competes under an Italian license, despite spending her early childhood in India and mainly competing in her adopted home of the Canary Islands. She also studied engineering in the UK. Her career encompasses stage rallying and buggy-based off-road rallying. 

Her first rally appears to have been the Corralejo-Majanicho Rallysprint in 2013, although she did not even get to the start in her self-built VW Golf as the rally was cancelled. Throughout her career, she has used her training to work on her own cars

She returned in 2014 and her first event was the San Bartolomé slalom. Christine, the only non-Spanish entrant, was 25th overall, driving a Toyota Corolla. She states on her website that the Corolla was the car that made her want to take up rallying. It remained her favoured car in 2014 and her first stage rally, the Tierra Isla Verde Rally, gave her a fourteenth place with a class win. She achieved two more top-twenty finishes in the Canary Islands and was 18th in the islands’ gravel championship, with a class win. In slaloms, she did even better, with a best finish of fourth in the Isla de Lanzarote-Tinjo event. She was 16th overall in the Canary Islands Gravel championship and won the 2WD class.

2015 had more of the same. She combined slaloms and stage rallies again and achieved her first top ten on the stages, a ninth place in the Isla de los Volcanes Rally. Her car was the Corolla. She entered five rallies that year, but was plagued by car trouble, and only finished two of them. Slaloms were a happier hunting ground and her best finish was fourth again in the Lanzarote-Tinjo slalom. During the season, she was signed up by the Spanish motorsport association for a two-year development programme, supported by Peugeot. Her first event in a Peugeot was the Rallye de Tierra at Malaga, but she retired due to mechanical failure.

In 2016, she started the year with slaloms in a Subaru Impreza. This had been her road car until she converted it herself to Group N spec. Her first event of the year was the La Candelaria - Tias event and she was second overall. Later, she did the Isla de los Volcanes event in it, finishing fourteenth. Her Peugeot deal led to several drives in an R2-spec 208, including a run in the WRC Rally Catalunya. She finished 49th overall. Her best finish in the 208 that year was a 16th place in the Ciutat de Valls Rally, one of the first asphalt rallies she had tried.

She was the top female driver in the Spanish gravel championship and third in the Junior class, as well as third in the overall Spanish women's championship. Away from Spain, she did her first international rally in a Ford Fiesta: the Bianco Azzurro Rose‘n’Bowl event in San Marino. She was 31st.

In 2017, she rallied four different cars, including the Impreza, a Fiesta R2 and two different Peugeots. She entered the Rally of Catalunya in a Peugeot 208, but did not finish. As well as stage rallies, she was very active in off-roading, having joined the US-based Dynamic Racing team. Her events included the Mexican Baja 500 and the Californian Baja 1000, driving a SxS buggy. A year that began with plans to contest the European Rally Championship ended up bringing her into another motorsport world and she showed promise, with a best finish of tenth.

Off-roading became her focus in 2018, although she did enter a Can-Am Maverick buggy into some Spanish gravel rallies too. She was eighth in the Ciutat de Tarrega rally and 15th in the Ralli Vidreres de Terra. In pure off-road competition, she was active in America again, but she also tried her first FIA Cross-Country World Championship rallies in Portugal and Spain. She was tenth in the Baja Portugal.She switched teams to the Avatel setup for European events in 2020, although the coronavirus crisis prevented a lot of events from happening..

After spending 2019 and part of 2020 in Spanish off-roading, she was announced as a driver for the Xite Hispano-Suiza team for Extreme E, an electric eco-conscious off-road championship which features male-female teams. She was signed alongside rallycross driver Oliver Bennett. They were fifth in the Desert XPrix in Saudi Arabia then sixth in the Ocean XPrix, held at Lac Rose in Senegal. These were their best results of the season; although Christine got progressively quicker as the year went on, the team struggled. She was announced as the 2022 female driver for Veloce in January.

As well as Extreme E, Christine contested the 2021 Iberia Cup for cross-country rallies. She won the T1N class in the Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura, driving a Toyota Hilux.

Her time with Veloce in Extreme E started badly with a broken foot in qualifying for the season-opening Desert X-Prix in Saudi. She was replaced by championship driver Hedda Hosas. The long gap between rounds one and two meant that she was able to return for the second round in Sardinia, but she and Lance Woolridge could only manage eighth. They did not reach any finals this year and both drivers were replaced for the final round in Uruguay, with Christine taking over as championship driver. 

She started 2023 as a driver for Carl Cox's team, who had bought out Xite. Together with Timo Scheider, she managed on third place in the first Scottish race, but their car was not fit to race the next day and they dropped out. Christine was replaced by Lia Block for the rest of the season, although she did deputise as championship driver for the last two rounds. 

Much of the rest of 2023 was spent preparing for her first attempt at the Dakar in 2024. She joined the TC Racing team in a Can-Am SSV, partnered by Ricardo Torlaschi.

(Image copyright Extreme E)