Citroen and Benefit chose Silverstone as the venue to launch the third DS3 by Benefit special edition. The all-female press pack were given the chance to experience thrill rides with female racing drivers. I think they got makeovers, too, they don’t often get offered at Silverstone.
   I managed to grab 25-year-old racer Annalese Ferrari from Leicestershire, who has raced in the Leon Cup, Green Touring Car League, and various carting championships. I asked:

Do you think a woman will get to drive in F1 in the next 5 years? She said:

“ I do think it’s possible because Sauber has just signed Simona de Silvestro and there’s a lot of talk that she will get offered a seat next year because she’s  one of the best that has a chance at doing that.
   And there’s Susie Wolf at Williams but I’m not sure she’ll get a seat because she’s not got the extensive record as Simona."

So what would help?
“A strong female role model would help more females get into F1 and would take it into a more mainstream space. Generally, people think that women in F1 is all about the grid girls!”

The Hon Mrs Victor Bruce has long been a heroine of mine. She won the Coupe des Dames in the 1927 Monte Carlo Rally, in the days when simply manhandling a car around snowy hairpins and barely marked roads was a major achievement. She raced at Brooklands, broke records at Montlhéry and then took off to set records in the air.
   In 1974, at the age of 78, she roared around Thruxton circuit in a 3-litre Capri Ghia at 110mph, and she lived to the grand age of 95.
   I thoroughly enjoyed her autobiography Nine Live Plus, written in 1977, but I didn’t know until last week that she had also published a book in 1928 called The Woman Owner-Driver: The complete guide for lady motorists which has just been reprinted by the British Library.

Encouragement for lady drivers
Like road racer Dorothy Levitt, who wrote The Woman and the Car in 1909, Mrs Victor Bruce wanted to encourage more women to share the fun of motoring, and the book is full of advice and notes about things that shouldn’t get in your way – including other drivers.
   However, where Dorothy Levitt's book is full of good sense, with rather a teacherly tone, Mrs V-B comes over as endearingly bonkers.
   She writes that the best drivers need the imagination and deductive powers of a detective to observe the scene ahead and guess what dangers they will need to avoid. So far, so good, but her advice in most circumstances, rather than brake, is to accelerate. If you suspect someone coming the other way is going to pull out into your path, put your foot down and show him you mean to claim that bit of Tarmac by getting there first. If you see two dogs on opposite sides of the road, and you think one may run across to greet the other – accelerate and get in between the dogs so they can’t see one another. Hmm.
   In the 1920s, as in the early days of driving, those who got behind the wheel themselves rather than leave it to the chauffeur needed get to know their engines far better than today’s drivers. Dorothy Levitt donned an overall and gave instructions for stripping down your De Dion's single cylinder. Likewise, Mrs Victor Bruce has lots to say about getting the fuel/air mix right, taking care with the starter motor and avoiding backfires.
   Both ladies also talk at length about suitable clothing. In Dorothy’s day, a hood or windscreen cost extra, so the right headgear was essential. She advised: “There is no question the round cap or close-fitting turban of fur are the most comfortable and suitable, though with the glass screen up, it is possible to wear an ordinary hat with a veil round it.”
   Close to twenty years later, Mrs Victor Bruce advises thin-soled walking shoes to save wear on the backs of heels (fine advice even now). As for headgear, she writes “ Most of the tight-fitting hats of today are quite suitable for motoring, but there is one point to guard against, and that is too tight a fitting. It is bad for the hair, makes it greasy and quickly removes the cherished wave, and if worn for long hours at the wheel causes bad headaches.”

Who is more liberated?
Perhaps the most striking emotion I felt while reading Mrs V-B’s book was envy at the freedom ladies with her income enjoyed back then. Don’t fill up your car with luggage, she says, sent your trunk ahead on the train. Driving on the Continent is fun, and ‘the varied driving experience gained in three weeks or a month abroad is as good as a course of concentrated instruction”. A month? No snatched weekends for her.
   Visiting France and Belgium is pleasant, but she writes: consider…the glorious North African coast as a touring ground. The roads of Morocco, and the unspoilt mediaevalism of Fez and Marrakesh are worth the extra trouble of reaching them, while Tunisia and Algeria have their individual attractions.” It’s sad that it would take a piece longer than this review to list all the reasons why the lady motorist shouldn’t try it these days.

A great gift
This is a most enjoyable book, illustrated with some lovely Blandings-style line drawings. It would make a great gift for any female friend who loves her car, or who is about to take her test.
   My only complaint is that there the publisher hasn’t added a chapter to introduce Mrs Victor Bruce (her name was Mildred, by the way, I’m not surprised she rarely used it, friends called her by her second name, Mary). All we get is a four-line sentence saying she was a pioneering motorist who smashed world records, and the first woman driver to be prosecuted for speeding.
   I hope people who read this book will look her up, and learn about her incredible life and family background (her grandmother fought off Indians on the American frontier, her mother was a Shakespearean actress who played the ukulele).
   My favorite piece of advice from these pages, again as applicable now as it was then, is: “In the case of an accident, or any kind of clash with the police, silence was never more golden.”

The Women Owner-Driver: The complete Guide for Lady Motorists
First published 1928, this edition published by the British Library 2014
ISBN 978 0 7123 5730 2
£7.99 Hardback

Lets Race simulators (above). The winner could go on to be a racing driver like GT4 and BRSCC Mazda driver Jade Edwards (top), development driver for Williams, Susie Wolff (below), or affiliated driver at Sauber and ex-IndyCar star, Simona de Silvestro (bottom)

Here's an amazing opportunity budding racing drivers over 16 – and wouldn't it be great if some girls have a go, or if one of them even won?
   The UK’s only full-motion F1 simulator centre, Lets Race, is launching a competition in partnership with multi-championship winning race team, Carlin, and the Henry Surtees Foundation, to take the best racers from the simulated world to the track. 
   The winner of Lets Race to Reality 2014 will receive a day’s testing in a Carlin Formula 3 car, complete with a dedicated team of mechanics, data engineer and race engineer. Wow!
   The competition is open to any driver over the age of 16. The first round during March and April will be held on Lets Race’s 10 full motion simulators in Horley, Surrey (cost £25).  The winners will then be invited to take part in a karting event at Buckmore Park in Kent 23 May (cost £65). Here, several heats will whittle them down to the most skilled racers. 
   A final selection process at Carlin’s headquarters in Surrey will allow participants a real inside glimpse into the world of a professional racing driver. Finalists will take part in various exercises, including a simulator session with a Carlin race engineer, before taking part in an interview process with racing industry professionals, including Former Formula 1 and Motorbike champion John Surtees, OBE. Just meeting such a legend will be prize enough for F1 fans.
    Rupert Swallow, MD of Lets Race said, “Carlin has worked with F1 drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Max Chilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen, and we are offering competitors in Lets Race to Reality the opportunity to follow in those drivers' footsteps in a Carlin F3 car.” 
   John Surtees added, “I am very pleased to be part of Lets Race to Reality and offer competitors the chance to experience something that is normally out of reach for even the most ardent motorsport fan.  Not only will they create a once in the life time experience for the lucky winner, it will also raise money for the Henry Surtees Foundation and the great causes we are sponsoring.”

See more details, including entry dates and heats, on the Lets Race website

I was recently sent some fascinating information about the racing driver Anne-Cecile Itier.

On this blog, I’d admired the gorgeous T51/38 Bugatti Roadster, known as the Mystery Roadster, because no one knows who put this body on it. Its Danish owner Henrik-Schou Nielsen sent me some photos of the car and this replica racing licence produced for Goodwood.

The car was built for Mme Itier as a Type 51A, around a 1926 Type 35. Factory test sheets state that its new twin-cam engine produced up to 140bhp at 5500rpm – putting it among the most powerful Bugatti GP racers of the time. She owned the car from 1933 to 37, and raced it in all types of events, even racing against a plane at Montlhery in 1936.

What a gal!

If you have any more information about the Mystery Roadster, get in touch via my contact form.