Women Drivers in the BTCC

Fiona Leggate as an MG driver, in 2007

The British Touring Car Championship’s present format began in 1987, as a renamed, streamlined version of the British Saloon Racing Championship. Although the previous championship (which will be covered in a future post) had attracted many female drivers over the years, the BTCC has been male-only for several seasons. The last female driver was Fiona Leggate, in 2007.

Below are the championship results of all female drivers in the BTCC.

1988

Barbara Cowell (Ford Escort RS1600/Toyota Corolla) – 19^th

1989

Louise Aitken-Walker (Vauxhall Astra GTE 16V) – 5^th

Nettan Lindgren (BMW M3) – 26^th

Barbara Cowell (Toyota Corolla) – unplaced

1990

Nettan Lindgren (BMW M3) – 10^th

1991

Nettan Lindgren (BMW M3) – 22^nd

1998

Paula Cook (Honda Accord) – unplaced

1999

Paula Cook (Honda Accord) – 19^th

2001 (Production Class)

Annie Templeton (Peugeot 306 GTi) – 19^th

Joanna Clarke (Honda Integra Type R) – 26^th

2002 (Production Class)

Annie Templeton (Peugeot 306 GTi) – 13^th

2005

Fiona Leggate (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) – 16^th

2006

Fiona Leggate (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) – 21^st

2007

Fiona Leggate (MG ZS) – unplaced

2020

Jade Edwards (Vauxhall Astra) - unplaced

Jess Hawkins (Vauxhall Astra) - unplaced

2021

Jade Edwards (Honda Civic Type R) - 26th

Jess Hawkins (Ford Focus ST) - 29th

2022 

Jade Edwards (Honda Civic Type R) - 27th

2023

Jade Edwards (Honda Civic Type R/Cupra Leon) - 31st

(Image copyright Simon Murphy)

The Lancia Lady Cup

Lady Cup-spec Lancia A112 Abarth

This one-make championship for female drivers in Sweden ran from 1984 to 1989. It used the Lancia-badged Autobianchi A112 Abarth, a motorcycle-engined supermini that had been in production for quite some time before the Cup’s existence. The marketing department at Fiat had noted that the A112 was bought by a comparatively very large number of younger women, which seems to have informed the creation of this racing series. Its connection to Sweden is slightly puzzling, as Swedish motoring was dominated by domestic brands like Saab and Volvo, but the A112 was sold there, and had been badged as Lancia rather than Autobianchi for some time.

The championship itself was organised by the Swedish  women racing drivers’ club, and followed on from their earlier all-female racing series, which used the Mini. Women’s championships had been a feature of Swedish motorsport since at least 1979. The women drivers’ club formed in the late 1970s, and its membership formed most of the entrants for the Lady Cup. Drivers were all Swedish, or racing under a Swedish license.

Each Lady Cup championship consisted of six rounds, normally contested within Sweden, although one year, 1987, a race was held in Hungary, as a support to the Hungarian Grand Prix. It is unclear whether this was part of the championship.

The first championship, in 1984, was won by Åsa Johansson, the sister of Formula One driver, Stefan Johansson. Subsequent Lady Cups were mostly won by Nettan Lindgren, who dominated the series completely for most of its lifetime. In 1988, she made a clean sweep of wins, pole positions and fastest laps, after missing out on only one win in 1987. In 1989, Eva Bornebusch won the title.

Nettan Lindgren went on to race in the BTCC. Her near-total dominance of the Lady Cup meant that there was not much room for another female star to come up through the ranks. Mostly, Lady Cup competitors were active in Swedish club and national-level motorsport. One of the longest-standing members of the Swedish women racing drivers’ club, Ulla Britt Wigh, raced in at least one edition, finishing ninth in 1986. She was competing against her daughter, Anneli, who was fourth.

Among the drivers who spread their wings a little more were Catta Lindgren, sister of Nettan, who drove in the 1988 Kemora 500km race as part of an all-female team, and Eva Bornebusch, who was part of the same team. Eva Bornebusch was also a regular in one-make racing in Sweden in the 1990s. Eva Kjellkvist-Pulls was another long-term Lady Cup competitor who was a regular face on the Swedish one-make scene for a long time afterwards.

The A112 went out of general production in 1985, which limited the Cup’s shelf life somewhat. It was replaced by the Lady Opel Cup, which used GM's Corsa.

For more information about some of the drivers in this series, click here.

List of winners:

1984 Åsa Johansson

1985 Nettan Lindgren

1986 Nettan Lindgren

1987 Nettan Lindgren

1988 Nettan Lindgren
1989 Eva Bornebusch

(Image from rejsa.nu)

Nettan Lindgren

Nettan Lindgren-Jansson was born Mona Anette Lindgren, in 1957. Her father raced, and she took up karting as a teenager, before embarking on her own professional motorsport career.

This Swedish driver was one of many international faces in the British Touring Car Championship during the early 1990s, which is how she first came to the attention of this blog. Between 1989 and 1991 she drove a powerful BMW M3 E30 on the British circuits. She was a true international driver, as she was competing in the Swedish Touring Car Championship at the same time.

Nettan's results were not spectacular; the highlight of her BTCC days was a class win in 1990. For her first season, 1989, she took part in seven races, as a self-funded entry. Her best result was a third in class at Brands Hatch, thirteenth overall, and she was only 26th at the end of the season.

In 1990, she was one of three Swedish drivers in the series, along with Per-Gunnar Andersson, who was her team-mate for two races, and Tommy Borgudd. Nettan was much stronger this year, supported by BMW Sweden, and won her class once. Her best overall result was fifth, at Thruxton. She was also eighth at Oulton Park, and ninth at Donington. She was tenth overall.

In 1991, she was back to part-season, and only did five races, still with the BMW Sweden team. She and Per-Gunnar Andersson were team-mates again. Her best finish was tenth, at Donington, and she was 24th in the final standings. This was combined with a drive in the Swedish Touring Car Chamionship, running in the Group A section. Her car was the same BMW M3 E30. Actual race results are proving hard to find, but she was eighth in the championship, with Per-Gunnar Andersson won.

In Britain, she is most famous for her contretemps with former F1 driver Jonathon Palmer at Snetterton, in 1991. Palmer made a poor overtaking move and deliberately punted Nettan off the track. The move was unsuccessful and he ended up in the gravel trap nearby. Nettan was not going to take this lying down. She marched over to Palmer's car and told him exactly what she thought of his tactics. The disagreement threatened to get physical, with the Swedish lady slamming a door in her rival's face. Marshals intervened and the pair were separated. Palmer was later disciplined for his driving standards.

This is perhaps an injustice to Nettan. She had a good single-seater pedigree behind her, having started racing in 1978, in Formula Ford. Driving for Magnum Racing, she was sixth in her first season, and third in her second in 1979. After that, she competed in Sports 2000 in Sweden for a year. She was unplaced in the championship, and even the make of her car seems to be lost. It may have been a Tiga, as these were popular at the time, and she had raced a Tiga Formula Ford car in previous seasons.

Nettan proved herself to be a fine driver in her Formula Three days, between 1981 and 1984. Her first F3 season was a short one, consisting of five races in the Swedish series and one in the European, driving a Martini MK27. She drove the same car in 1982, again entering one European event, and was ninth in the Swedish championship. 1983 was another much-abbreviated season, with Nettan only making one outing in Europe in a newer Ralt RT3. In the Ralt, she attacked the Swedish, Finnish, European and Scandinavian F3 championships in 1984, now a member of the Flygvapnet team. She was eighth in Sweden, second in Finland and fifth in the Scandinavian series. Her European exploits consisted of a single race, so she did not score points.

Her career in tin-tops began in a Lancia. The marque was running a women’s racing series in Sweden in the 1980s, and Nettan won it four times between 1985 and 1988, winning all but four of the Lady Cup events during that time. Her sisters, Catta and Nonna, raced alongside and against her for at least a couple of seasons. This step down, albeit a successful one. to domestic club competition may well have coincided with Nettan's having children.

Later, after her British adventures, she re-entered Scandinavian motorsport. In 1993, she entered an M3 into Class Two of the Nordic Championship, and was third. She returned in 1994, still in the M3 but was sixth this time, after only entering four events. In 1995, she changed her car to a BMW 318is, and was sixth in the STCC.

Another hiatus followed, but once more, she returned, in 1998. She was now driving for the Ross Racing team in the STCC, and spent one season in a Ford Mondeo, and another in a Peugeot 406. She ran near the back both seasons, finishing in 24th place in 1998, and unplaced in 1999.

She retired from full-time racing in 1999 but remained involved with the sport, through her Swedish touring car team. She was sponsoring and mentoring young Swedish driver Caroline Jansson, who happens to be her daughter. Nettan competed in the UK fairly recently, for Sweden, in the 2005 Formula Woman Nations Cup, driving a Caterham. Closer to home, she raced a Ginetta in Sweden in 2007, alongside Caroline.

Remarkably, she made yet another comeback in 2011, in the Swedish Trofeo Abarth 500. She was thirteenth overall, after a solid run of mainly lower top-ten fnishes, the best being two eigthths.

She does not appear to have raced since 2012.

(Image from http://www.stccdatabas.se/)