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Profile
DOB: August 13, 1944
Birthplace: Bushey Heath, England
Teams Hesketh, Surtees
Sportswoman, best known for her Olympics career
and her motorsport racing career.
Accepting an invitation to a celebrity auto
race, Galica surprised everyone with her driving
talent. She eventually took up motorsport as a
second career, initially racing karts, moving into
Formula Two and Formula One before finding success
in sports cars and trucks. Her racing career has
included stints in Formula Renault and Formula
Vauxhall Lotus.
Galica was taken under the wings of John Webb
and Nick Whiting, who entered her in the British
Shellsport International Group 8 series in 1976,
driving a Surtees TS16 Formula One car. After
promising showings in this domestic series, Whiting
decided to enter Galica for that year's British
Grand Prix, using their Surtees. This appearance
was notable as the first time in 13 years that a
car had been entered for a World Championship Grand
Prix using the supposedly unlucky number 13; so it
also proved for Galica, as she failed to qualify
for the race.
For 1977 Whiting acquired a second-hand Surtees
TS19 for Galica to use in the British series. The
Whiting team lacked the technical expertise
required to properly set the car up for each race,
and Galica was often hindered by poorly adjusted
machinery.[1] Arch rival Tony Trimmer was
also equipped with a Surtees TS19, but his
engineering background and well-funded team meant
that he was the class of the field at most venues.
Whiting managed to secure sponsorship from Olympus
Cameras part way through the season, as prior to
this the whole team had been run on a budget of
only £10,000 for the entire season.[1]
Despite this, Galica did manage to take third place
at the Brands Hatch and second place at the
Donington Park rounds, but with Trimmer winning
both he took the Championship title.
Hesketh Racing's works driver Rupert Keegan had
taken part in a couple of rounds of the British
domestic series in 1977, and at the start of the
1978 Formula One season Hesketh offered Divina
Galica the opportunity to replace him in the team's
Hesketh 308E car. Galica took the Olympus
sponsorship with her (replacing Hesketh's previous
Penthouse magazine sponsorship), but failed to
qualify the 308E for either of the 1978 World
Championship season's first two races. Following
the second failure she returned to the British
Shellsport Championship, now a fully Formula One
series. Reunited with her TS19, Galica took second
place at the Zandvoort round. However, in her
absence Trimmer had upgraded to an ex-works McLaren
M23 car, and with the aging TS19 Galica stood
little chance of being competitive. A second entry,
later in the season, in her own M23 only produced a
seventh place finish.
Aside from a limited number of outings in
single-seater cars, Galica switched her attention
to the Thundersports S2000 sports car class, taking
a number of top ten finishes, and truck racing.
Galica became a racing instructor with Skip Barber
Racing Schools, rising to become senior vice
president of Skip Barber Racing, managing both its
driving school and racing series. In 2005, at the
Mont-Tremblant weekend of the Skip Barber Race
Series, Galica announced she was leaving Skip
Barber to work for iRacing.com as a director in the
company.
Results
Six races, one podium
finish
First F1 race - 1976 British Grand
Prix
Last F1 race - 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix
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