Female drivers in Formula One
Reuters marks 50 years since Lella Lombardi's last F1 start, noting only two women have raced in the championship and no woman has scored a full point.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Historical Reuters roundup noting the 50th anniversary of Lella Lombardi's final F1 entry. Only two women have started a championship grand prix, with Desire Wilson the sole female race winner in a non-championship event.
For 50 years, only two women have ever raced in Formula One, the world's fastest car series. The last one, Lella Lombardi from Italy, finished a race in 1976. Now a few young women are getting test drives, like trying out a car before a big race, hoping one day to race for real.
Analysis
Lombardi's half-point in Barcelona
The 1976 Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona's Montjuic circuit produced one of the strangest lines in Formula One's record books. With the race shortened and points awarded only to the top six, Maria Grazia "Lella" Lombardi crossed the line sixth and collected half a point. It remains the only half-point ever awarded to a woman in a world championship round, and it is the closest any female driver has come to a full championship point in the modern scoring era. Lombardi's 12 career starts, all between 1974 and 1976, were sandwiched between failed qualifying attempts, underscoring how thin the participation window for women in grand prix racing has been.
Desire Wilson at Brands Hatch
South Africa's Desire Wilson holds a unique distinction that no contemporary female driver has matched: she is the only woman to win a Formula One race. Her victory came in 1980 in a non-championship round of the British Aurora series at Brands Hatch, a circuit that also hosted the championship British Grand Prix that same year. Wilson failed to qualify for the championship race at the same venue, a brutal reminder that the gulf between winning a one-off and contesting a full grand prix weekend was, and remains, enormous. The 1980 Brands Hatch weekend also marked the last time multiple women entered a championship grand prix, with Lombardi and Britain's Divina Galica both attempting to qualify.
Brabham's 1992 gamble on Amati
The most recent female driver to attempt a full championship seat was Italy's Giovanna Amati, who failed to qualify for three races with Brabham in 1992 before being replaced by Damon Hill, a future world champion. The episode crystallises a structural problem that has outlived several generations of car: a small private team willing to take a chance on a female driver could not extract enough performance to make the grid. More than three decades later, the pipeline has shifted but not closed. Williams elevated Jamie Chadwick into a development role, Aston Martin gave Jessica Hawkins an F1 test, and Mercedes has placed French racer Doriane Pin in the programme, suggesting that the modern route into grand prix racing runs through simulator mileage and Friday practice outings rather than a race seat.
Key points
- Only two women, both Italian, have started an F1 championship race: Maria Teresa de Filippis and Lella Lombardi
- Lombardi's half-point at the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix is the only championship point, partial or full, ever scored by a woman
- South Africa's Desire Wilson is the only woman to win an F1 race, a non-championship event at Brands Hatch in 1980
- Several women have held test or development roles, with Doriane Pin currently linked to Mercedes
- It has been 50 years since a woman last started a championship grand prix
The recent stream of development and test opportunities at Williams, Aston Martin and Mercedes, including Doriane Pin, suggests a more credible pathway into a race seat than at any point since Amati's 1992 attempt with Brabham. If F1's growing commercial focus on diversity delivers, a female championship driver within the next decade is plausible.
Fifty years after Lombardi's last start, the field has produced only two female championship entrants and zero female points scorers under the modern points system. Test and development roles have not translated into race seats, and smaller teams like Brabham in 1992 folded before any breakthrough could materialise, a pattern that could repeat if economics rather than talent dictate the grid.
