Desiré Wilson

Desiré Randall Wilson (born 26 November 1953) is a former racing driver from South Africa and one of only five women to have competed in Formula One.

Quotes

• I never looked back in the race, It’s one of those things, it’s hard to explain … It happens once in a lifetime. You say to yourself: ‘If I get into this corner first and lead the race I’m going to win.
• In my era, there were so few women that were racing at my level, You never really thought about yourself as: ‘I’m a woman in this race.’ You don’t think of yourself as something else. I was always the underdog because I never had funding and I was always given these cars to drive without any practice — I was always thrown in the deep end. For me it was always a concentration of what I was doing in this race car.
• The biggest problem is there’s never really enough funding for a woman to complete all the steps, It’s opportunity, what team you’re in, the funding you have and so forth. I was expecting someone to come up when I saw one or two drivers come up that had a fair amount of talent, but they never quite got to where they needed to go.
  • Desiré Wilson: Fast but forgotten, Mail& Guardian,21 February 2020 by Luke Feltham

External Links

• F1 rejects interview
• Racing Reference Profile
• Champcar Stats