Australia’s great race, the Bathurst 1000, is just around the corner – and while the days of Falcon vs Commodore are over, the drivers in the 2025 Supercars Championship are promising an exciting day of racing.
Considered to be the jewel in the Supercars crown, the Bathurst 1000 is not only the longest event in the competition calendar with drivers covering a distance of 1,000km over 161 laps, but also one of the toughest with 27 cars fighting for pole position around the narrow and twisty Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst, NSW.
To celebrate the return of the great race, which has been running annually since 1960, we’re taking a look at the women who’ve conquered The Mount!
MELINDA PRICE & KERRYN BREWER
Still holding the record for the best result for an all-female driver combination, Melinda Price and Kerryn Brewer made history when they finished 11th at the 1998 Bathurst 1000 race in their Castrol Cougars Holden Commodore.
Melinda, who grew up racing go-karts says she was asked to join the Castrol Cougars team after impressing both Holden and Larry Perkins, who at the time were putting together an all-female race team.
“It was a dream come true for me…. I was so excited, a little bit nervous, but mostly excited to get the opportunity,” Melinda, 54, told Supercars in 2018.
“I remember my first Bathurst going to the drivers’ briefing and looking at Peter Brock and Larry and Dick Johnson and thinking ‘I can’t even believe that I’m in the same race as these guys again’.”
Since their record breaking run at Bathurst in 1998, both Melinda and Kerryn stepped away from racing.
But after raising her family and beating breast cancer, Melinda returned to racing in 2017 in the Touring Car Masters, and is also a presenter for the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series.
“I hadn’t raced in 10 years years, when dad said a family friend of ours had a historic Lotus Formula Junior car, and we could run it while the owner was overseas,” said Melinda.
“That stuck in my head overnight and I thought, well, maybe…’. So off to Winton we went and I fell in love with it all over again. Next thing I know I’m back at Bathurst again in Touring Car Masters!”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO
In 2017, Swiss-born driver Simona de Silvestro became the first full-time female driver in the Supercars championship when she joined Nissan Motorsport.
With a background in Formula E, the Iron Maiden admitted to the Herald Sun in 2018 that there was a bit of a challenge learning not only the Australian tracks, but also getting used to her car.
“I think when I came here, I’d never raced these guys anywhere, so you have to earn your stripes a bit,” the 37-year-old shared.
“But now I feel like I kind of belong. It doesn’t feel any different to any other racing series I have been in in the past.”
In late 2020, Simona traded her V8 supercar for an electric Formula E and a GT3 racer under Porsche’s factory racing team.
Simona returned to Mount Panorama in 2023 as a wildcard entry for Dick Johnson Racing – placing 20th in her Ford Mustang.
Since then she’s tried her hand at F1 racing, and is hoping to compete in bobsledding at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for Italy.
RENEE GRACIE
Born and raised on the Gold Coast, Renee Gracie debuted as the first female driver to compete in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship in 2013 at just 17-years-old.
After racking up 5 top ten finishes in her debut season, Renee decided to switch to V8 supercars in 2015 where she was partnered with Simona for the Bathurst 1000.
Behind the wheel of team Prodrive Racing Australia’s Ford Falcon, she and Simona finished 21st after hitting a wall thanks to an oil slick on the track.
And while she was living her dream, Gracie said she faced numerous challenges coming up in the junior go-karting.
“I would take my helmet off after a practice session and one of the dads would say: ‘you can’t let her beat you. You can’t let a girl beat you,” she told the ABC.
“I think for the dads, I was at risk of taking something from their sons they so desperately wanted, which was a career in motorsport.”
Once she made it into the Supercars Championship, things didn’t really change – revealing she faced relentless feedback about her appearance.
She also told the ABC she received no payment for racing in the Bathurst 1000 or promoting the event.
Feeling extremely self-conscious and with only $50 to her name, Renee turned to OnlyFans in 2019 to support herself and restore her confidence.
“Weirdly it gave me confidence because I had none, if that makes sense,” she said.
“Actually getting acknowledgement and recognition was exactly what I needed especially after being in the place I was in.”
Once she was in a better place financially, Renee returned to motorsport in 2021 in GT3, where she won the GT World Challenge Australia GT Trophy in 2023.
LEANNE FERRIER
Starting out in go-karts in the early 1990s, Leanne Ferrier made her debut in Development V8 Supercars (Also known as Super2 Series) and finished the season in fifth place.
Three years later, Leanne moved into the Australian Touring Car Championship under Team Toyota Australia before eventually stepping into Australian Formula 3, where she became the first woman to win a race in 2007.
In 2004, she married five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Garth Tander. The couple who split in 2022 have two children, Sebastian and Scarlett, who are both following in their parent’s tracks in go-karting.
Most recently, Leanne competed in the Australian Touring Car Racing Series under team Audi Sport Australia.
ROMY MAYER
While she’s not behind the wheel, the work Romy Mayer does as a race engineer behind the scenes is crucial to delivering a win out on the track.
Hailing from the same German town as the inventor of the automobile, Gottlieb Daimler, Romy first stepped into motorsport while interning for the Mercedes-Benz Group (MBG).
“I didn’t see myself being an engineer until my first internship at Daimler AG (Now MBG),” she wrote on her website.
“Then I got fascinated by the new technologies and automotive world. The “Fascination Motorsport” is what got me into racing but the results of hard work and perseverance made it my passion.”
In her role, Romy uses data management software that tracks 500 different suspension, aerodynamic, engine and tyre parameters to find the best possible set-up for the race car.
Her job is to then analyse the 250,000 possible set-up options to recommend the best tyre choices and fuel loads, like an orchestra maestro, to get her team to the top of the podium.
After a five-year stint working under the Mercedes team in the German Touring Car Championship, Romy moved to Australia in 2015 and joined the Red Bull Holden Racing team as a data and performance engineer.
In 2022, she became Triple Eight’s chief race engineer – and helped seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes achieve a record wildcard (guest) driver placing in the race’s history.
But looking for a bit more of a challenge, the young mum of two joined the smaller and younger PremiAir Racing team, helping them achieve their first ever podium at the Sandown 500 in 2024.
“I have been extensively engaged in back-end work with our simulation software and engineering and strategy tools, providing support to the engineering team as we enter the endurance rounds,” Romy said ahead of this year’s Bathurst 1000.
“There is considerably more involved compared to the sprint rounds.”
BETTY KLIMENKO
For Betty Klimenko, her fascination with motorsport began while on a Porsche driving experience in the late 1990s. Soon after she began sponsoring amateur and semi-professional teams in the Formula 3 and GT circuit using the millions she inherited from her adopted dad and co-founder of the Westfield Group, John Saunders.
And while she never got behind the wheel of a race car, she changed V8 Supercars history in 2012 when she became the first woman to ever own her own team after buying Stone Brothers Racing.
In 2017, she also became the first woman to ever lead a team to victory at Bathurst too, when David Reynolds and Luke Youlden crossed the finish line in the Erebus Motorsport Commodore.
“This is magic and this is for the people who believed in the black, and for every single one of you that’s standing out there… thank you,” she told the crowd from the winners podium after the race.
As the Bathurst 1000 win proved Betty and her team at Erebus were here to stay, she turned her attention to helping other women get involved with motorsport as a global ambassador for Dare To Be Different, which was founded by former F1 test driver Susie Wolff.
“So many people ask what it is like to be a woman in motorsport, and I don’t see myself any differrently to any male,” she told Supercars.
“I was the first female team owner to enter the sport off my own bat, and the first one to win Bathurst; just because I’m the first doesn’t mean I should be the last.”
“I think it’s important young girls understand they can make an impact in a male dominated industry.”
