This week brings the kind of championship drama that turns casual fans into The Obsessed: last-lap overtakes in the rain, breakthrough victories from drivers who refused to crack under pressure, and a family-run team that just beat the Big Boys at a 24-hour race. Plus a 19-year-old stepping into an former F1 champion's seat, permanent records being cemented, and a 10-year-old who proves the biggest hearts come in the smallest packages.
Buckle up…
🏆 THE PODIUM
CHANTAL PRINZ and her team pulled off one of the most satisfying underdog victories of the season. CHANTAL’s family-owned team, HOFOR, includes her husband, Alexander Prinz, and her father, Michael Kroll. While the flashier factory Pro entries, like Scuderia Praha’s Ferrari, battled strategy and mechanical gremlins, HOFOR quietly executed a flawless endurance race. As the sun rose Sunday HOFOR was not only in the lead of their class, they were leading the entire race. It was a win no one saw coming. Like the Little Engine That Could, this little team did.
P2: LIA BLOCK & MAYA WEUG Win F1 Academy Races in Singapore
Singapore started as a pretty crappy weekend for LIA BLOCK. In practice she could only manage 14th, but climbed to 8th in qualifying. Race 1 is reverse-grid so 8th put her on pole. LIA was clearly determined to take full advantage and led from pole to flag with championship leaders MAYA WEUG, DORIANE PIN, and CHLOE CHAMBERS in constant pursuit. This was LIA's maiden F1 Academy win and a breakthrough worth watching.
No doubt frustrated by chasing LIA around the streets of Singapore, unable to pass in Race 1, MAYA WEUG made a last-lap lunge on championship leader DORIANE PIN to take the lead and win Race 2. The move closed the championship points gap with PIN down to just nine points.
With a razor-thin championship fight, a new winner on the block (no pun intended), CHLOE CHAMBERS consistently battling at the front, Vegas is the next F1A stop.
ANTONELLA BASSANI made history at 19 as the youngest woman ever to debut in Brazil’s Stock Car Pro Series. She’s replacing two-time champion and F1 racer Rubens Barrichello, so no pressure. Despite racing a car totally new to her, and racing in Brazil’s most competitive racing field, ANTONELLA gained 10 places - from 28 to 18 - in her debut race. Ten guys, including former F1 legend Felipe Massa, got the thrill of being passed by a 19yo rookie GRRL!
🏁 IN THE POINTS
ISABELLA ROBUSTO became only the second woman ever to win the ARCA Rookie of the Year honors. She raced to an incredible nine top-fives during the season, three off the all-time female record. We’d say “fast start, Isabella!” if it wasn’t such a bad pun.
SOLENN AMROUCHE led the GTX class for most of the race's first half until gearbox issues in the early morning hours cost over 20 laps. Her team raced hard and in her last stints they moved all the way up to finish second - an incredible victory.
SARAH MONTGOMERY, ALANA CARTER, and ASHLEY FREIBERG claimed AE Victory Racing's first-ever World Racing League victory and the first all-female win in the competitive GTO class. After a mechanical setback forced a retirement Saturday, the team bounced back Sunday with pace and racecraft to take the win in all-female style.
MIKAELA AHLIN-KOTTULINSKY wraps her Extreme E career as the series' most successful driver with 16 total podiums—more than any other competitor, male or female. Her KMS team partnership with Johan Kristoffersson holds the record for most wins by a driver pairing with seven victories. Next is the groundbreaking FIA Extreme H World Cup debut —motorsport's first international hydrogen-powered race event.
KATHERINE LEGGE is stepping into uncharted territory this Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, marking her first NASCAR Cup Series start on an oval a mile or longer. After making her Cup debut at Phoenix in March and logging five other starts this season, she's ready to tackle the 1.5-mile Vegas oval in the No. 78 Chevrolet during the playoff opener. Her 17th-place finish at the Brickyard 400 in July proved she can compete when given quality equipment and track time.
JODIE SLOSS wrapped her rookie FFSA GT4 campaign in style with back-to-back AM-class podiums at Paul Ricard. The Scottish driver and teammate David Levy entered the finale sitting on one class win and six consecutive podiums in just her first full season.
ATIQA MIR showed exactly why Formula 1 Academy has her back, topping practice and qualifying seventh out of 32 drivers in her debut at Dubai's IAME UAE Karting Championship. The 10-year-old was running a clinical fourth in heat 1 and pushing for a podium in the pre-final when a crash left her with a broken kart and injured hand and elbow. Starting dead last in 28th for the final, she systematically picked off 18 drivers to claim 10th place and proves that sometimes the fastest things come in little packages.
🏅 HONORABLE MENTION
Kellymoss co-owner Victoria Thomas is developing an endurance racing program that pairs ASHLEY FREIBERG and LONI UNSER, recognizing their potential as "really powerful personalities" who excel at sponsor storytelling (sponsors!). The program could land in SRO's GT World Challenge America or IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge, with Thomas strategically targeting series with substantial audiences.
FREIBERG stepped up her game this season, graduating from Porsche Sprint Challenge to Carrera Cup North America in Kellymoss' No. 22 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. Meanwhile, UNSER dominated Sprint Challenge competition in the No. 4 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport, securing a class victory and finishing runner-up in the Cayman Pro/Am driver standings. The Wisconsin-based team is already testing newly acquired Porsche 911 GT3 Rs and expects to maintain its strong presence across Porsche single-make series while expanding into endurance formats.
👑 HERSTORY: JANET GUTHRIE
Back when women in racing seemed to only breakthrough once in a while, Janet Guthrie broke through everywhere all at once: sports cars at Sebring and Daytona, NASCAR at Darlington and Daytona, and the first woman to qualify at this race in Indianapolis they call The 500. She even became a bit of a TV star as a spokesperson for Texaco.
When crew chiefs doubted her, she wrenched her own cars. When sponsors disappeared, she found new ones. When NASCAR tried to block her entry, she sued—and won. (Legend has it this is where the “Grr” in GRRL! comes from.)
Her Indianapolis 500 debut came with a secret broken wrist – she wasn’t about to miss this opportunity no matter how much it hurt. She finished ninth at Bristol in a NASCAR Cup car held together with borrowed parts. She was cool as could be but an ultimate competitor.
Ultimately she proved that women belong not only on a racetrack, but on every racetrack. She was competitive in anything she drove, and opened doors for women in all aspects and categories of racing.
GRRL! Website Stats
Section | New This Week | Website Total |
|---|---|---|
9 | 700 | |
42 | 1431 |
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You Rock!
Some people front about being all about women’s sports, but you - you’re the real deal, bucko. You’re here keeping up with women in the only sport where women go head-to-head against men, and are complete f&%king badasses. Brava you!