Michele Mouton was always going to be famous, as was the Audi Quattro - they were a match made in heaven ❤️
We couldn't celebrate International Women's Day without shouting out the most successful female rally driver of all time. So good, in fact, that even 1981 WRC champion Ari Vatanen gave up on his promise to retire if he was ever beaten by a woman, when she beat him at the San Remo rally later that year.
Despite her career only starting when she was 22, co-driving with a friend in the 1973 Monte Carlo rally, she caught the bug and, backed by her dad for the first year, got into the world of competitive racing. In 1981, she got a job offer we could only dream of - driving the new Audi Quattro in that year's WRC. You know the one - the all-wheel-drive car that changed the future of rallying.
Of course, her mother told her to race, and clearly that extra emotion worked in her favour, as she took the lead with ease. That is until the gearbox, fuel injector, radiator and driveshaft all broke. Then, in an attempt to make the time back, she crashed. Still, the successes kept on coming - she remains the only woman to win the Pikes Peak hill climb.