MOTORSPORT: All-female Bathurst 1000 attack

An all-female driving crew comprising Swiss Simona de Silvestro and Queenslander Renee Gracie will be a wildcard entry in this year's Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 driving a Ford Falcon FG X prepared by Prodrive Racing Australia.

De Silvestro, 26 (first picture), is running 27th in the Verizon IndyCar championship in 2015, having made three starts for Andretti Autosport. She has recently announced she will race in the full 2015/16 Formula E championship for electric open-wheelers for the Andretti team.

Gracie, 20, (second picture with V8SC drivers) is in her first year in the Dunlop development series driving a Falcon FG II for Paul Morris Motorsport. She runs 19th in the championship with a best finish of 12th.

V8 Supercars clearly expects to generate big publicity out of the duo, with the announcement of their entry made in Sydney yesterday by NSW premier Mike Baird and the category's boss James Warburton.

And the hype has already begun with an official V8 Supercars press release advising de Silvestro's nickname is the 'Iron Maiden', while Gracie is the 'Devil Princess'. Certainly more dramatic than 'Lowndesy', 'Frosty' and 'J-Dub'.

The deal has been put together by Gracie's manager Chris Jewell and is for two years. A naming rights sponsor is said to have been secured for the wildcard entry, but was not announced yesterday.

With de Silvestro/Gracie confirmed alongside fellow wildcards, Newcastle brothers Aaren and Drew Russell who will drive an ex-Garry Rogers Holden Commodore VF, the field for the 2015 Great race has been set at 27.

That's one up on 2014 when Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris drove from last on the grid to win an epic encounter in a PRA Pepsi-Max Falcon.

"The Bathurst 1000 race was actually the first V8 Supercars race that I ever watched and it looked amazing," de Silvestro said in the official announcement.

"The track looks great from what I have seen on TV. It looks really challenging and I can't wait to see it for real and to drive around it."

Added Gracie: "To be paired up with a high-profile international female like Simona, who I really look up to is incredible. So to say I am excited would be a complete understatement."

The last women to race in the 1000 was Leanne Tander, who finished 18th with David Wall in a Paul Cruickshank Racing Falcon in 2009. The last all-female crew to contest the race was Melinda Price and Kerryn Brewer, who finished 11th in a Perkins Engineering Commodore in 1998.

While there is a long history of women contesting the race, dating back to its Phillip Island antecedent in 1962, the best-ever result by an international was sixth by French woman Marie-Claude Beaumont in 1975, who co-drove An Alfa Romeo GTV with local open-wheeler ace John Leffler to sixth outright and first in Class B.

That matches the best effort by a local woman, with Christine Gibson (nee Cole) finishing sixth in 1981 with Joe Moore in a Falcon XD.

Perhaps incredibly, de Silvestro is not the first female IndyCar driver to contest the Bathurst enduro. That honour goes to American Janet Guthrie, who shared a Ron Hodgson-entered Torana A9X in 1977, with her legendary countryman Johnny Rutherford.

But Guthrie, who also became the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500 that year, never drove in the race itself after the Texan crashed out early.