Alfa Romeo is celebrating Worldwide Girls’s Day by highlighting a number of the ladies who’ve raced its automobiles over the previous century. They collectively achieved an extended checklist of spectacular achievements on and off the observe within the face of adversity.
One of many earliest-known ladies that raced an Alfa Romeo professionally is Maria Antonietta d’Avanzo, an Italian baroness who began competing shortly after World Struggle I. Her profession spanned a number of many years, throughout which she competed in opposition to quite a few pilots, together with an formidable younger man named Enzo Ferrari who would have a profoundly essential impact on Alfa Romeo’s picture and success on the observe. He was a mediocre racer, by most accounts, however he proved to be a superb supervisor and was quickly put in command of the carmaker’s racing efforts.
Ferrari bought Anna Maria Peduzzi certainly one of her first race automobiles: an Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Tremendous Sport. Racing both alone or along with her husband, she took first within the 1500 class of the 1934 version of the Mille Miglia. Hellé Good and Odette Siko additionally raced Alfa Romeo automobiles in the course of the Thirties; the latter completed fourth general and first within the 2.0-liter class in a privately-entered 6C 1750 Tremendous Sport. Alfa Romeo’s official entry, an 8C 2300, took second general.
Belgian-born Christine Beckers and Dutch racer Liane Engeman each competed within the GTA — one of many firm’s most profitable race automobiles — in the course of the Sixties. Alfa Romeo later employed Engeman as a mannequin.
Maria Grazia Lombardi (often known as Lella) raced a GTV6, however she’s higher often known as the one lady to have scored factors in Formulation One. She competed from 1974 to 1976 and scored half some extent in 1975. She additionally raced in 4 editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and completed twentieth general and second in her class in a Lancia Stratos.
Colombian pilot Tatiana Calderon joined the Sauber Formulation One crew as a growth driver in 2017 after a profitable profession racing karts. In 2018, she turned a take a look at driver for Alfa Romeo’s Formulation One crew. She would not line up on the beginning grid (no less than not but) however she performs an enormous half in creating the corporate’s top-level race automobiles. In contrast to a lot of her predecessors who raced as privateers or for small groups, she’s formally affiliated with the corporate. Race groups (and automotive producers typically) started welcoming extra ladies into their ranks within the Nineteen Nineties.
Sibling firm Maserati additionally make clear a number of the ladies who’ve performed an essential function in its racing historical past. Italian pilot Maria Teresa de Filippis drove a privately-owned Maserati 250F in 1958, when she turned the primary lady to qualify for a Formulation One Grand Prix. Whereas she completed the Belgian Grand Prix race in final place, she earned a spot in Formulation One historical past.
