On The Road

Sports Car & Motorcycle Specialist

Restoration Engine Building

Expert Advice Project Management

Telephone: +33 (0)624 59 51 67 Email: ms@mikesweeney.eu

www.mikesweeney.eu Siren 838987717

FIND the CHEAPEST FUEL prices in your area.

This government run website provides comparative petrol and diesel prices in all areas of France. Just simply select your department from the map, and voilà!

www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr

Drive business to your door Advertise here Contact us for details

info@thedeuxsevresmonthly.fr

GIRLS CAN DRIVE TOO YOU KNOW !

by Helen Tait-Wright

Ifind it perturbing that even now, in 2022, women are still having to fight for their places in motorsports events and struggle to get backing and to be taken seriously. This was really brought home to me recently when I interviewed Rebecca Busi, one of the drivers in the Dakar Classic. At 25 she is struggling to break into the sport she loves because she is young and a woman.

Driving ability is not defined by your sex, but anything to do with cars is still percieved as a male domain. I am not really sure why, as if you look back in history the women were right there at the forefront of the motoring revolution.

In this column I have previously written about Barbara Toy, a pioneer for modern long distance overland travel in her Land Rover, and about Eva Dickson who, in 1932, became the first woman to drive across the Sahara. These feats were accomplished 70 and 90 years ago respectively !

Motor sport events, in which ladies could compete, have existed since the earliest days of the sport and date back to the first known ladies’ motorised tricycle race in 1897.

Dorothy Levitt was an early lady racer, becoming the first female “works” driver in 1904, and her French counterpart Camille du Gast had been racing consistently at international level since 1901.

As rallying became popular and widespread in the late 1920s, females began to enter these events as drivers. In the UK, large rallies such as the RAC Rally attracted hundreds of drivers, with a good many more ladies among them than is seen nowadays.

The 24 Heures du Mans, first held in 1923, had its share of females, and the first all-women crew to contest the event were Odette Siko and Marguerite Mareuse in 1930. The French women finished seventh overall in their Bugatti Type 40, and they remain the most successful all-female crew at Le Mans.

Britain’s Anne Hall was one of the best women rally drivers in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Over some 15 years, Anne Hall took part in all the major long-distance rallies, with impressive results. After retiring from professional driving in the late 1960s, she set up an advanced driving school in Britain. She was however lured back to rallying in 1988 when, aged 72, she won the women’s section in the Pirelli Classic Marathon, a 2,300-mile round trip in the Alps.

The late Pat Moss – sister of Grand Prix legend Sir Stirling Moss - is one of the most successful female rally drivers of all time, scoring three outright wins and seven podium finishes in international events. She was crowned European Ladies Rally Champion no fewer than five times.

In the history of F1, there have only been five female drivers, with Italian driver Maria Grazia “Lella” Lombardi being the most successful. She is the only female F1 driver in history to have a top-six finish in a World Championship race, which she claimed at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix.

In stage rallying the legendary Michèle Mouton earned respect in a man’s world not only for her driving, but for her personality and passion. She remains the only woman to have won a round of the World Rally Championship and the first women to win Pike’s Peak. Until recently, Michèle was President of the FIA’s Women & Motor Sport Commission, which aims to facilitate the full participation of women in all aspects of motor sport.

As we can see, women can not only compete with the men but also take home top honors behind the wheel. Being a man doesn't give you an advantage; being a good driver does.

However, it is a fact that women drivers have to work a little bit harder and run that extra mile. Not all women have a passion for racing but when one does, shouldn’t this modern woke society embrace this?

So, are women only events the answer? I know I have competed in a women only rally, twice, but honestly I don’t think they are. Their existance only serves to seperate the sexes and give the impression that women can’t compete on equal terms with men. An all woman team running in an open event is a much more positive option, and one I will be pursuing myself from now on.

I leave you with the words of the great Michèle Mouton herself in a 2021 interview with Le Figaro; “Motorsport is one of the few sports (along with horse riding and sailing) where men and women can compete without distinction. This is a particularity of which we should be proud. There are no barriers to women's progress in our sport, so there is no reason to limit ourselves. We need to be more ambitious. The goal is not to be the best woman but the best driver, which means competing against men.”