The Five Women of Formula 1
“It’s a male environment and they want to keep it that way - the drivers, the journalists, everyone. ”
With four Grand Prix races of the 2024 Formula 1 season already behind us, and the Chinese Grand Prix quickly approaching, I have been thinking about female involvement in the sport. While it may be surprising, there are no rules preventing women from competing, but since its founding in 1950, only five women have entered Grand Prix races, and only two have qualified and started a race.
Maria Teresa de Filipps was an Italian motorsport racing driver and the first woman to race in Formula 1 from 1958 to 1959. She began her racing career at the age of 42 when she won a 10 km race from Salerno to Cava de’ Tirreni. After placing second in the 1954 Italian Sports Car Championship, she was hired by Maserati. Even though Maserati withdrew from Formula 1 following the 1957 season, Maria Teresa de Fillipps was still able to compete in Maserati’s racing cars. Her first time qualifying for a Grand Prix was the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix where she ended in 10th place, the last to finish the race. For the 1959 season, she joined the Behra-Porsche Formula 1 Team, however, she retired from the sport following the death of her good friend and Porsche team leader, Jean Behra. Maria Teresa de Filipps retired from the sport with five entries, three starts, and zero career points.
Lella Lombardi, an Italian motorsport racing driver, was the second woman to compete in Formula 1 and is the only female driver to score points in Formula 1. In 1957, she was invited to join the March Engineering Team. That same year, Lombardi became the second woman to qualify for a Grand Prix race when she qualified in the 1975 South African Grand Prix. She then became the first and only female F1 racing driver to win points when she ended in 6th place and scored half a point in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. After being replaced by Ronnie Peterson in 1976, she briefly moved to the RAM Racing F1 team. Lombardi later left Formula 1 and began racing sports cars. She retired from racing in 1988 with seventeen entries, twelve starts, and 0.5 career points. In 1979, Lombardi started her own racing team, Lombardi Autosport.
Divina Galica was the third female Formula 1 racing driver. Prior to her motorsport career, she was a competitive skier and competed in four Winter Olympics for Team Great Britain. Galicia was introduced to motorsport when she was invited to participate in a celebrity auto race. She later took up motorsport as a second career and entered the 1976 British Grand Prix. Unfortunately, she did not qualify, but the race made history when it became the first and only F1 race to have two women enter. In 1978, Galica entered the Argentine Grand Prix and the Brazilian Grand Prix, but she failed to qualify for either. She ended her Formula 1 racing career with three entries, zero starts, and zero career points. However, she became one of only eight F1 drivers to compete in the Olympics.
Desiré Wilson, a South African motorsport driver, was the fourth woman to enter a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The only race she entered was the 1980 British Grand Prix, but she failed to qualify. While never starting in an F1 Grand Prix, she was the first and only woman to win a Formula 1 Championship race when she won at the Brands Hatch round of the British Aurora AFX series in 1980. Wilson retired from competitive racing in the late 1980s. While ending her career with one entry and zero starts, her accomplishments in motorsport make her one of the most successful female racing drivers ever.
The fifth and final woman to have entered a Formula 1 Grand Prix was Italian racing driver, Giovanna Amati. She began her professional racing career in 1981 in the Formula Abarth series. From 1985 to 1986, she participated in Formula 3 before moving to Formula 3000 in 1987. In 1992, Amati was signed to the Brabham F1 racing team. That same year, she entered the South African Grand Prix, the Mexican Grand Prix, and the Brazilian Grand Prix but failed to qualify for any of them. She was fired from Brabham after the 1992 season. After ending her F1 career with three entries and zero starts, Amati went on to win the 1993 Women’s European Championship and race in the Ferrari Challenge from 1994 to 1998.
While no other women have competed in Formula 1 since Giovanna Amati in 1992, Formula Racing has recently made great strides in opening the door to young, female drivers. In 2023, Formula 1 introduced the F1 Academy. F1 Academy is a single-seater racing championship with the purpose of developing the skills of young, female drivers to prepare them for higher levels of competition. The second round of the F1 Academy season will take place in Miami in early May, and I highly recommend checking it out!
