Lella Lombardi

She was born on 26 March 1941 at Frugarolo, a village of two thousand people in Piedmont, eighty kilometres south-east of Turin. Her father was a butcher and cattle dealer who worked between Frugarolo and the Ligurian coast. She was the youngest of four daughters and stood one metre fifty-seven.

Her father was against racing. When she was not there, he spoke proudly of what the local papers wrote about his daughter. Others paid for it: her partner Fiorenza, a sister and her brother-in-law.

She was called «Tigre di Torino», the tigress of Turin. The name came from a journalist and never quite fitted – she had little to do with Turin.

She bought her first racing car in 1965: a C.R.M. of the Formula 875, the make most people ran that year. Money was short, so she paid by instalments.

The car arrived on a lorry an hour before her first race. Her crew was two people: the village blacksmith, who knew something about engines, and Pino, a friend from childhood. From May the motor business of Sandro Moroni at Lodi lent a hand.

Entered by the Scuderia Moroni, she contested the Trofeo Cadetti at Monza in May 1965. She was unplaced. The field was large.

In 1970 she won the Formula 850 with a Biraghi Fiat and four victories. Then Formula 3 with Lotus and Brabham. In 1974 she was fifth in the European Formula 5000 championship with a Lola T330, with fourth places at Brands Hatch, Monza, Oulton Park and Mallory Park. In November of the same year she drove the Grand Prix at Oran Park in Australia.

In 1975 she reached Formula 1 with March, made possible by Count Gughi Zanon di Valgiurata. At the Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuïc she finished sixth. The race had been stopped after Rolf Stommelen’s accident and half points were awarded – which makes her to this day the only woman to have scored a championship point.

Her car was no good, and she was not believed. All season she complained that the March pushed into corners and let go at the rear as soon as she opened the throttle. Vittorio Brambilla drove a few laps and found nothing. Only when Ronnie Peterson described the same thing a year later was the chassis taken apart: the cast magnesium rear bulkhead was cracked.

She then raced sports cars, mostly for Osella, and was fourth in the world sports car championship in 1981. From 1982 to 1986 touring cars for Alfa Romeo. After the 1985 season she fell ill with cancer. She died on 3 March 1992 in a clinic in Milan.