Va-va-vroom! Formula 2 series gets its own Danica
After seeing our favorite IRL driver in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition win her first race, we were convinced that what motor racing needs is more female drivers. With the glass ceiling showing more and more cracks, we're encouraged by the news that Swiss rising star Natacha Gachnang will be among the drivers competing in the inaugural season of the new Formula 2 championship.
Racing fans who watch the junior leagues like football fans watch college games will know the 21-year-old Gachnang from her promising career so far. This year she finished a solid third place in the Spanish Formula 3 championship and second in the Copa de España. Before that she was on our side of the Atlantic, racing in the Star Mazda series where she finished in the top ten in each race. At the same time she was driving in the F3 Euro Series and in Austrian Formula 3, where she finished a solid fourth.
Other drivers already signed on for the new FIA series, which is being run by Jonathan Palmer with Audi-powered Williams chassis, include Armaan Ebrahim, Tobias Hegewald, Julien Jousse, Jason Moore and Robert Wickens. Natacha, however, cousin to Toro Rosso hopeful Sebastien Buemi, is up to the challenge, with the ultimate goal of reaching Formula One. We'll be watching, and you can start by checking out some of Natacha's glamor shots and images from her short but successful racing career in the gallery below.
Gallery: Natacha Gachnang
[Source: F1-Live, images courtesy of natacha-gachnang.ch]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
BigMcLargeHuge 3:40PM (12/17/2008)
Damn.
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jud 10:46PM (12/17/2008)
Nice rack ...and pinion!
Switch 3:42PM (12/17/2008)
Hot Damn. Not the prettiest girl alive but I would take a ride any day.
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moyoi 5:45PM (12/17/2008)
Amen!
She gets points for knowing how to drive better than me. Damn I would love if my gf could give me pointers on turn #5. lol
KA 3:46PM (12/17/2008)
This is why women don't enter motorsports -- the first thing you link to is a swimsuit photoshoot, and look at the first few comments. It's idiotic.
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tenfifteen 4:06PM (12/17/2008)
"This is why women don't enter motorsports"
So this is a man, baby? Fooled the hell outta me.
Seems Natacha, Danica, and a host of others don't seem to mind the awful mistreatment they endure at the hands of the misogynists. I'd say motorsports is the least sexist of all the major sports; certainly the only one I can think of where women compete *against* men... or maybe football (US/Euro), baseball, hockey, basketball, et al, integrated overnight and I missed something.
Natacha and Danica know that it's primarily men who watch the sport; so they vamp it up a little. Big effing deal. Should they be in burqas?
slicecom 5:11PM (12/17/2008)
Look at her press pictures! You're seriously defending her when she poses for her press pictures in a mini skirt? Clearly she's trying to use her looks to get ahead, don't blame men who say she's attractive. There are plenty of women in motorsports who don't pose for pictures like this and are in turn, not treated as sex objects; Katherine Legge and Sarah Fisher to name a couple.
g00fba11 10:30PM (12/17/2008)
@KA:
oh get off your high horse.
Rich 3:47PM (12/17/2008)
...because people love to be treated as sex objects.
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Polly Prissy Pants 3:51PM (12/17/2008)
I wish someone would treat me as a sex object.
CBR 3:52PM (12/17/2008)
Those look like man hands to me...
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LloydChiro 3:54PM (12/17/2008)
She can have banana hands for all I care. She's hot.
streetdrifter 4:01PM (12/17/2008)
like a creature out of ancient greek mythology: half hot chick, half man hands
dub 3:53PM (12/17/2008)
Well when you take a professional "racing" photo with a skirt that high, what do you expect. Hot women sell.
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Robert 3:53PM (12/17/2008)
Check out that camel toe! Oh wait, that's that's the zipper...
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SPF 3:55PM (12/17/2008)
D*mn, look at those hands, bet she can kill a tiger by hand.
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Epyx 3:56PM (12/17/2008)
I still prefer Danica but this girl has a nicer rack.
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Chris 3:56PM (12/17/2008)
That's a guy!
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Evotec 3:59PM (12/17/2008)
you mean a transvestite? (joking)
FishMan 4:18PM (12/17/2008)
She certainly won't hurt Formula 2 any. Somehow, it seems like a lot of people take this stuff way too introspectively. Being attractive doesn't mean she's a good driver or a bad one. Just her on her driving ability and be done with it. If she wants to pose for a picture in a short skirt, that's her decision, not yours.
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