Female racers add cachet to Castrol TRS grid

For me, the Toyota Racing Series through the years has been a rich vein of excellent back stories. The ones the media (and TV) love.
We’ve had:

-Online gamers turned racers (Jann Mardenborough)

-Sons of world champions (Josh Hill, who was accompanied by Damon for part of his second tour; Pedro Piquet, who was supported by his dad Nelson in much the same way)

-Speedway stars trying their hand at circuit racing (Michael Pickens)

-‘Black sheep’ racers from American country music families (Shelby Blackstock, son of Reba McEntire)

-Relatives of other famous former racers (Lucas Auer, nephew of Gerhard Berger)

It’s always been a special place, a TRS pitlane. But never more so than when we had a female driver or two involved. Leanne Tander, Tatiana Calderon, Michela Cerruti and our own Christina Orr have all added an indefinable something to pitlane and grid alike. Every year I’ve waited to see if we had a female – or even two – among the entries. I think we had Aussie’s Chelsea Angelo interested one year though the cost appeared to be beyond her.

So how exciting to see Marta Garcia is plotting an assault on the 2020 Castrol Toyota Racing Series ahead of a likely return to the W Series in 2020. Garcia finished the women’s series fourth overall, and is one of 12 drivers guaranteed a place on the grid for the all-female series’ second season
Norisring race winner Garcia, is a former Renault junior driver. She plans to invest the $100,000 of prize money she earned into a seat in the TRS, whose new-for-2020 car is based around the same Tatuus F3 chassis used in the W Series. The big attraction is the chance to run 15 races in five weekends with up to 3000 km in a modern single seater before her rivals have a chance to get back on track.

“I did one year now of W Series, but on its own it’s not enough, you need more kilometres. If I do CTRS, I can be there to fight for the championship, I hope, next year. The plan is to go there in January and do all the races to get experience and the feeling to be ready for the beginning of next season.”

The last two races of the W- Series exposed a weakness in her racing. Garcia’s eighth-place finish at Brands followed on from a lowly run to ninth at Assen, tracks she was not familiar with.

“These last two tracks I drove are the kind of tracks that don’t suit my driving style the best,” she said. “But I know already where I need to work on, so that’s good.