Difference between revisions of "Women Drivers Association"

Revision as of 10:42, 14 April 2014

The Women Drivers Association is the governing body of the Women's GT World Championship and the Women's GT Junior Cup. Its origins can be traced back to the early years of Grand Prix history.

Early beginnings (1905 - 1914)

Bertha Benz founded the Bertha Benz Stiftung für Motorsportlerinnen (Bertha Benz Foundation for female racing drivers) in 1902, when Grand Prix racing became more and more popular and the first female pioneers in motorsports had entered the scene. At first, the foundation focussed on signing only german female drivers to race Benz cars in several European motorsport events.

Soon the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG), rival firm of Benz & Cie. at that time, got the upper hand in motorsports with their Mercedes 35hp, and they even wanted to sign famous French racing lady Camille du Gast to drive such a car in the 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup, because her performance in the 1903 Paris-Madrid trial (the "Race of Death", as it was later called) had impressed the chairmen of the DMG very much. But then the French Government barred women from competing in motorsports altogether, and du Gast had to decline the offer.

Another notable driver was Countess Elsa d'Albrizzi, who finished ninth in the 1899 Padua-Vicenza-Thiene-Bassano-Trevisio-Padua trial, driving a Benz lightcar. The Countess became good friends with Bertha Benz and helped her finance the Bertha Benz Foundation and female drivers in general to enable them to partake in major motorsport events, even when they weren't driving a factory Benz car.

Finally, Camille du Gast was able to sign a contract with the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft to race one of their Mercedes 35hp in the inaugural Brighton Speed Trials in 1905, only to be beaten by British rising star Dorothy Levitt in a Napier 80hp. Although Bertha Benz felt sorry for du Gast, she was delighted to see the Mercedes 35hp lose at this major event.

Bertha Benz herself travelled to Brooklands several times during 1909 and 1913, but her husband refused to let her finance promising female drivers like Muriel Thompson and Christobel Ellis, because he feared, the increasing political tensions between Germany and Great Britain at that time could cause immense trouble for Benz & Cie., if German authorities could get the impression, that the company financed British racing drivers on behalf of Bertha Benz.

Bertha was disappointed, but found herself agreeing with her husband's fears. So she cancelled her already scheduled trip to Indianapolis in the spring of 1912 and focussed solely on running the company, before the war broke out in August 1914.

The Golden Age of Grand Prix Racing (1928 - 1937)

During these years Bertha Benz donated Ladies' Cups in major racing events. One of these was the German Klausenbergrennen (Klausen hillclimb), and despite her age, Bertha still presented the trophy to the winning lady personally until 1928. That year, Beatrice Else Frieda Margarethe "Margot" Gilka-Bötzow, Countess of Einsiedel, who raced under the name Margot Einsiedel, became the new president of the Bertha Benz Foundation. Einsiedel had won the Klausen hillclimb Ladies' Cup from 1926 to 1931 and even supported the Bertha Benz Foundation with her own money in all these years.

The ambitious Countess soon set her eyes on the male dominated Grand Prix scene in order to prove what female racing drivers were capable of outside the often ridiculed Ladies' Cups. Therefore she purchased several Alfa Romeo Monzas and founded the Deutsches Alfa Romeo Damenteam (German Alfa Romeo Ladies Team) in 1931. Notable female racing drivers driving for the very first exclusive ladies team in the history of motorsports were Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier, Mariette Helene Delangle (better known as Mlle. Helle-Nice), Vittoria Orsini and Eileen Ellison.

The ladies participated in Grand Prix all over Europe and even in South America until 1936. By that time, the Daimler Benz AG and Auto Union were utterly dominating the scene, so Margot Einsiedel and British rising star Kay Petre, who was a very good friend of German Auto Union driver Bernd Rosemeyer, tried several times to purchase a couple of Auto Union C types or at least the next best thing, upgraded Auto Union B types. This should have helped the ladies to be more competitive, but the company itself as well as Nazi authorities refused such a deal. It was obvious, that the Nazis didn't approve of female racing drivers at all, because it was highly contradictory to how they saw "modern" women.

Helle-Nice also crashed heavily during the Sao Paulo Grand Prix of 1936 and retired from Grand Prix racing altogether afterwards, which ultimately led to the decline of the German Alfa Romeo Ladies Team. Margot Einsiedel financed Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier's private entries in the smaller voiturette class until 1939, when World War 2 broke out. By then, the financial situation of the Bertha Benz Foundation was already hopeless.

Results 1931

Driver Car TUN CAS MAR DIE COM MON BAU Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 7 9 3 Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza 4 7 9 9 8 Results 1932 Driver Car TUN ROM ORA NIM CAS LOR GER DIE CIA ACE BAU MAS Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 13 8 10 10 DNF DNF Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza 8 DNF 5 10 DNF Marguerite Mareuse Alfa Romeo Monza 14 DNF Vittoria Orsini Alfa Romeo Monza DNF 10 Results 1933 Driver Car ALE PIC EIF POL DIE CIA BAU ACE MAR ALB MON MAS Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 1 5 DNF 4 Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza DNF 8 9 9 Vittoria Orsini Alfa Romeo Monza 10 DNF DNF Edith Frisch Alfa Romeo Monza 6 DNF Results 1934 Driver Car CAS PIC EIF VIC DIE BER COM ALG Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 3 7 6 9 Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza DNF 7 DNF 7 7 8 7 Results 1935 Driver Car PAU PIC FRO BIE PEN LOR ALB COM Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 6 3 8 Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza 8 4 6 DNF 7 Eileen Ellison Alfa Romeo Monza 3 7 Results 1936 Driver Car PAU FRO RIO PIC SAO Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier Alfa Romeo Monza 3 7 Helle-Nice Alfa Romeo Monza DNF 15 DNF Rising from the ashes (1946 - 1960) Kay Petre and Margot Einsiedel had retired from motorsports altogether, so it was Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier's turn to rebuild the Bertha Benz Foundation or what little was left of it after the war. Her first official act was to move the headquarters from the almost completely destroyed Berlin to Paris. It took her until 1958 to rebuild the Foundation, and like in the early years, the main focus was financing independent female racing drivers, because there wasn't enough financial background left for more ambitious projects. One of the drivers involved in this restructuring process was Maria Teresa de Filippis, who became the new president of the Bertha Benz Foundation in 1960, after Rose-Itier had retired. Safety issues (1960 - 1975) De Filippis gave the old Bertha Benz Foundation its first true international flair by changing the name to Women Drivers Association in 1961. But the former Formula 1 driver soon found other projects to be much more interesting, after having witnessed so many good friends dying behind the steering wheel of a race car. Because of that, de Filippis refused to finance female racing drivers entering Formula 1 or any Formula class for that matter, solely focussing on sportscar events instead. During the Monaco Grand Prix 1971, de Filippis met World Champion Jackie Stewart for the first time and was intrigued by the Scotsman's lonely crusade for safety in Formula 1, immediately deciding to support him in any way possible. Soon after this fateful meeting, the WDA started funding female racing drivers for Formula 1 once again, mainly to back Stewart up with some more "comrades-in-arms" for further safety measures. Then came the Spanish Grand Prix of 1975, and de Filippis stepped down from her position as president of the Women Drivers Association immediately afterwards, leaving motorsports behind her for good. Women drivers and toothpaste (1975 - 1999) French rallye driver Claudine Trautmann, who was the former manager of the infamous Team Aseptogyl, was elected new WDA president after de Filippis had stepped down. She had a far more pragmatic way of seeing things: "If a lady is determined enough to drive in Formula 1, you won't stop her from trying, no matter what you do. So why try to stop her at all?" During the next decades, Trautmann was able to turn the Women Drivers Association into a worldwide operating organisation. This was made possible with the help of American sportscar racer Janet Guthrie. Already back then, plans for organizing a Championship solely for female drivers emerged, but all these ideas suffered from an insufficient financial background. Even in the 1990s, Guido Forti tried to form an exclusive ladies team in Formula 1, with Giovanna Amati and Lyn St. James as drivers, but nothing came out of it. The WDA finally became a department of the FIA in 1999, the same year Claudine Trautmann retired at the age of 68 to focus on her family and private life. Miss Brabham takes over the operation (1999 - 2006) Having retired from professional racing, Giovanna Amati was elected president of the WDA in 1999. With the steadily increasing number of young female racing drivers all over the world, Amati found the WDA itself to be way too inefficient to handle all the necessary development programs on their own. So she established branches in almost every country with enough young female drivers, like Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and South Africa. Chairwomen of these branches were former racing ladies, such as Divina Galica, Desire Wilson, Cathy Muller and Waltraud Odenthal. The Status Quo and the Women's GT World Championship (2006 - 2014) Michele Mouton was elected president of the WDA in 2006. After all these decades of planning and restructuring, the WDA had finally reached an organizational and financial level, which enabled them to pull through with their Women's Championship. With the help of Monisha Kaltenborn and Claire Williams, who would later go on to manage Team Lotus, Michele Mouton established the Women's GT World Championship in 2014. Presidents of the Women Drivers Association 1902 - 1928 Bertha Benz 1928 - 1937 Margot Einsiedel 1946 - 1960 Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier 1960 - 1975 Maria Teresa de Filippis 1975 - 1999 Claudine Trautmann 1999 - 2006 Giovanna Amati 2006 - 2014 Michele Mouton