Exactly 50 years ago today, a chaotic Spanish Grand Prix came to an end after just 29 laps following a deadly crash. Half points were awarded to the top six finishers, which included Italian racer Lella Lombardi.
The moment marked the first, and only, time that a woman racing in Formula 1 finished in points-paying positions in a grand prix, and fans have been asking when another woman could race, let alone score points, in the championship ever since.
Lombardi was the first person in her family to get a drivers license, and quickly learned that her passion for driving fast and racing outweighed most of her other worldly interests. As such, she raced karts briefly and bought her first car to compete in Formula Monza in 1965.
Over the years, Lombardi climbed the ranks of Formula 850, in which she won 10 races and was crowned champion; Formula 3, where she finished third overall; then she entered Formula 5000 in 1974.
Lella Lombardi sits on her March 751 Ford
Photo by: Motorsport Images
The following year, Lombardi became just the second woman to qualify for a Formula 1 race at the South African Grand Prix, but was forced to retire after the fuel system in her March 741-Ford failed.
In Lombardi’s second race, the Spanish Grand Prix, she qualified 24th out of 26 drivers, but chaos in the opening stages of the race paved the way for her rise through the ranks. Four drivers were out by the end of the first lap, and a further four had retired by the end of lap 10.
In total, 17 drivers retired from the race, which was brought to an early end when Rolf Stommelen crashed off the track in a deadly incident that killed four people. Just 29 out of 75 laps were completed in Spain, which meant that half points where awarded for the grand prix and Jochen Mass picked up 4.5 points for his one and only win, and Lombardi claimed half a point for finishing sixth.
Lella Lombardi, Lavazza March 751 Ford, leads Bob Evans, Stanley BRM P201
Photo by: LAT Photographic
The half point remains the only score a woman has ever picked up in a Formula 1 race, while male drivers have earned thousands of championship points in the years since. In fact, Lombardi remains one of only two women to race in a Formula 1 grand prix, along with Maria Theresa de Filippis. Desire Wilson and Giovanna Amati subsequently failed to qualify for events in the 1980s and 1990s.
The question of when another woman will race in F1 is a hot topic, with W Series champion Jamie Chadwick recently telling Motorsport.com that teams up and down the F1 grid are “secretly desperate to find a future female superstar.”
Chadwick herself holds a development role with the Williams F1 team, and she had her first outing in F1 machinery during the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Williams isn’t the only side investing in female talent though, as all 10 F1 teams now back squads in the F1 Academy feeder series.
The all-women racing series is in its third season and has former Williams development driver Susie Wolff at the helm. The Scottish ex-racer, who drove in practice sessions for Williams in F1, says F1 Academy is all about “changing the perception of the sport” and nurturing new talent rising through the ranks.
It appears to be working, as 2024 champion Abbi Pulling is now preparing to compete in a full season in the GB3 Championship. F1 Academy’s first champion, Marta Garcia, has since tested Formula E machinery and made her GT racing debut with Iron Dames last year.
Add to this the fact that Haas has the first female race engineer in F1 history in Laura Mueller, and former world champion Sebastian Vettel is backing another scheme to increase support for young women drivers; it is now surely a case of “when” another woman races in F1, instead of “if”.
To read more about the trailblazing life of Maria Lombardi and her career in motorsport, head over to Autosport Plus to find out why she was much more than F1’s half-point heroine.
