THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAO PAULO, Brazil — Danica Patrick will be joined by three other women on the grid of Sunday’s season-opener in Brazil, marking the first time four women will start an IndyCar Series race.
Patrick will be racing along with Milka Duno of Venezuela and rookies Simona de Silvestro of Switzerland and Ana Beatriz Figueiredo of Brazil. A fifth woman, Sarah Fisher, is set to run on a limited schedule this year, but she will not be in the opener.
"This is really fantastic for our sport," said Terry Angstadt, president of the series’ commercial division. "Diversity is actually one of the attributes of the Izod IndyCar Series. Racing is the only sport where female athletes compete in absolutely the same field as the men, they race on exactly the same tracks, the same cars."
The last time three women competed together was in Miami last year, when Patrick, Fisher and Duno made the grid. They had raced together on other occasions since Duno joined the series in 2007, but IndyCar had never been able to gather more than three women drivers until now.
"It’s extremely nice to have four of us racing together here," said Figueiredo, who will likely be the most-cheered woman this weekend in her hometown. "We are having more and more women with chances to compete in the top level, that seems to be the trend now, and we should expect to see others in the series in the future."
Figueiredo, a two-time winner in the Indy Lights series, is yet to secure a full-season ride for 2010. She is hopeful, though, that a good performance in front of her home crowd on Sunday will give her a chance to follow in the footsteps of Patrick, one of the series’ biggest stars.
"Danica is a reference for the women here," the 24-year-old Figueiredo said. "She is the one who actually opened the doors for others in this series."
Patrick is a huge attraction, for her good looks but also for her on-track results since arriving in the series in 2005, when she was the rookie of the year. She became the first woman to win an IndyCar race in 2008, and last year she had a career-best fifth-place finish in the drivers’ standings. She also was third at the Indy 500, the highest finish ever by a woman.
Patrick applauded the number of women racing on the streets of Sao Paulo, but said it’s not happening because of her.
"I don’t look at it like I’m responsible for it," Patrick said. "Everyone that gets to this level — male or female — carved out their own path, one way or another, and is here for a reason. I’m happy about anything that brings attention to our series and pulls in more interest."
Before Patrick, there were a few other women making their way to IndyCar racing.
Janet Guthrie struck a blow for female athletes by becoming the first woman racer at the Indy 500 in 1977, and she was followed by Lyn St. James in 1992. But it wasn’t until 2000 that Fisher got to Indy, at 19 years old.
Fisher was the first to run a full IndyCar season in 2001, and also the first to win a pole in a major open-wheel circuit, in Kentucky in 2002. She was the most popular driver from 2001-03, but failed to secure enough sponsorship to race regularly in the series since then. She created her own team in 2008, Sarah Fisher Racing.
The 37-year-old Duno, the series’ first Hispanic female driver, will be making her 27th IndyCar start on Sunday, and for the first time she has a seat for the entire season. Duno has four master’s degrees, but hasn’t been able to reach significant results in the series so far.
Simona De Silvestro is coming from the Atlantic Series, where the 21-year-old driver became the second woman to win a race in the developmental series in 2008. She won four times last season and just missed the title after retiring in the final race.
"It’s just great to have these women in our sport," Angstadt said. "It’s good for the business."
And although IndyCar is thrilled to have as many women on board, Angstadt said the series makes sure its does nothing to favour them in relation to the men.
Not even a trophy for the woman with the best finish on Sunday?
"I think if you asked any of the women racing here this weekend, I’m sure they would say they don’t want anything like that," Angstadt said.