My first ideas for the top 10 female race and rally drivers of all time included entries from all over the world, maybe with one or two unsung heroines and some historical pioneers. However, looking at the cold, hard statistics of the best and fastest women of their day gave a different picture. Motorsport has had a far bigger share of female success than we think, and that’s even in the modern era, without trying to draw equivalence between Brooklands races and 1930s rallies and their present-day counterparts.
These drivers were the best, rather than being the first, the most popular or the most significant. This list does skew towards Europe and half of the drivers here were active in the 1970s. In comparison with the youngsters of F1 Academy or W Series, nowhere near far enough into their careers to compare, they are much older, often reaching the peak of their powers in their 30s and beyond and sometimes not even taking up the sport until adulthood.
In common with the latest crop of World Endurance Championship hopefuls, the Iron Dames among them, they were often most successful in sportscars, or working alongside a co-driver in a rally car. Interestingly, all-female teams have proved almost as fruitful as mixed ones.
There are only 10 spots on this list and inevitably, someone will be left out who may well deserve to be one of the ten. A top 20 would have looked very different and had a much bigger spread in terms of time periods and countries of origin. Debate away; it’s the point of this article after all, and just goes to show the strength in depth that the female side of the motorsport world has within it.
10. Anny-Charlotte Verney
Verney made 10 consecutive starts at the Le Mans 24 Hours between 1974-83
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Key success: 6th at Le Mans in 1981
The highest-placed female finisher at Le Mans in the modern era also holds the record for the most starts for a woman driver. Of her 10 appearances between 1974 and 1983, nine of those were in Porsches, usually self-entred, with a 935 K3 shared with Ralph Kent-Cooke and Bob Garretson her ride for 1981. Verney drove equally well in mixed and all-female teams, just missing out on the top 10 in 1975 with Yvette Fontaine and Corinne Tarnaud aboard a Carrera RSR. Her final 24 Hours was in a works Rondeau, as team-mate to Vic Elford and Joel Gouhier, but they did not finish.
Her career encompassed sportscars, touring cars, stage rallies and rally…
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