Growing up, Molly Taylor's dream was to represent Australia in equestrian at the Olympics.
But oh how that all changed when she went to get her driver's licence at age 16.
Her parents encouraged her to do a defensive driving course, and once she got in that car, the rest was history.
It was from that moment that Molly fell in love with motorsport,
becoming the first and only woman to have won the Australian Rally Car Championship back in 2016.
Now, Molly races in the international off-road racing series Extreme E, and is a 2021 series champion.
Welcome back to the Female Athlete Project.
I'm Sophie, the producer here at TFAP, and this week, Chloe sits down with Molly Taylor,
or as you might know her, Molly Rally, as per her Instagram.
The Australian Rally Car driver is paving the way for more women to get involved in motorsport from a younger age.
And what better time to catch up with Molly than just a week out from when she competes in the race of champions in Sydney on March 7.
We hope you enjoy this episode, and if you're driving while listening, just don't channel your inner Molly on your morning commute.
Molly Taylor, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.
Thanks for having me. I feel like we've been talking about this for a while, so it's nice to finally be here in the studio.
Yes, very nice. And also funny, because when I went to say your name, I always just call you Molly Rally.
I feel like that has just become...
You don't call me your name.
Yeah, it's funny. Sometimes, yeah, when people ask you for your email address or something like that,
and I, yeah, sometimes think Rally's my name.
You've even become my Instagram.
Very cool. I think I did that, you know, back when I thought it was cool.
I'm here for it. No, I feel like that's part of the whole thing as an athlete, right? Building your brand.
Yes, it says what it does on the tin, I guess.
Yes, I think it's smart. I've made it. I'm here for it.
I think it's good.
You've just... We're recording this back end of 2024.
You've just recently announced that you're going to be racing in the Race of Champions,
which is, like, incredible, the lineup of drivers that are going to be in this event.
Can you tell us a bit more about it?
Yeah, so it's an event they run every year, and they take it all around the world.
So it's the first time that it'll ever come to Australia, which is, you know, big for motorsport in itself.
But they do it inside a stadium, so they'll actually build a racetrack inside the Accor Stadium in Homebush.
So you can sit down like you're at a footy match, watch the whole thing, and then it's head-to-head,
knock-out racing, and they pick champions of all different disciplines from all over the world.
So you've got, like, Sebastian Vettel coming, Mick Schumacher.
You've got Travis Pastrana from the U.S. coming.
Johan Christofferson, seven-time world rally cross champion, coming.
Sebastian Loeb, who's been my rally idol.
So it's kind of like the who's who, the biggest names of motorsport you can think of.
And then they have a Nations Cup, so you race first.
So we'll be racing in Team Australia.
And then you have an individual day as well.
So, yeah, it's a really exciting...
It's like a sliding motorsport festival, I suppose, where you have all these different
drivers from all different backgrounds, all in a stadium.
That's very cool.
This is probably a silly question, but in a stadium, it's not very big.
Like, are they very tight turns?
Yeah, it'll be...
Like, it'll sort of go back on itself, and I mean, they don't have the exact design yet,
So it'll be quite technical.
Twisty, normally they put in a jump and some cool stuff.
So, yeah, it's all about creating a cool spectacle.
So, yeah, it'll be kind of...
I mean, cool as a driver as well to compete in that stadium, especially coming from rally
and off-road, because we're normally out in the middle of nowhere.
So will that be weird to be surrounded by spectators so close to you?
Yeah, I think the atmosphere will be incredible.
And that's, I think, one of the magic things about it.
You have all these really high-profile drivers come and battle it out in front of a crowd
So, yeah, it's something that I think is going to be very, very special.
Yeah, and a bit surreal to be invited to.
To be able to join drivers like that.
What kind of cars are you driving in it?
So they have a bunch of different cars.
I haven't even announced all the different cars that we'll drive.
So they normally have a selection of different cars, different types of cars.
So it's not like you're driving anything that, you know, one particular driver is used to.
They just bring in a whole heap of cars.
Oh, so you have no say.
You just say, wow, okay.
So all the cars will be...
They'll have, you know, maybe four or five different types of cars.
And they'll have identical cars in each category.
So you'll be racing head-to-head in the same...
In the same vehicle, but you might go from, you know, like a Can-Am sort of buggy...
...into a rear-wheel-drive sports car, into some sort of open car.
...like it depends.
So, yeah, I think that's the other challenge.
It's, you know, throwing just drivers out of their wheelhouse and everyone into this stadium,
you know, gladiator environment and just, you know, testing driver skill, you know,
like a really raw level.
So how much does your prep change when there's multiple different types of cars?
I mean, it's one of the things, I suppose, like any motorsport is preparation and training.
It's really hard to get seat time.
So that's, you know, you don't get a lot of prep.
We'll have a test session to sort of get to groups with each car quickly, but then really
Then you're out attacking, attacking it.
So that's kind of like most of the motorsport stuff.
You have some test days, but they're very limited.
So you kind of have to learn on the fly very quickly.
And is that like a technical thing?
Like what is the reason behind that?
Well, mostly money.
Most of motorsport really, yeah, it comes down to that just because like the resources
to get the cars, to get the crews, the development, the locations, to do a test day is inherently
So they limit the amount to try and keep costs down, you know, so it's not just the team
with the most money that can afford to go and do a test day every week will inevitably
be ahead of a team that can only do three test sessions a year.
So they try and regulate that.
But it's definitely a challenge for the drivers.
And so much about when you're coming up through the levels and staying on top of your game
is how you can get seat time or replicate seat time to try and make sure you're as fresh
But yeah, it's not like footy where if you're, if you're way more dedicated than the next
player, you can get an advantage by putting in an extra hour every evening in motorsport.
It's really difficult to do things like that.
So how much time do you do in like the simulation type driving?
Simulators for the type of driving I do a bit tricky because we do a lot.
In, I mean, with Xtreme E, the electric off-road stuff, we don't see the track until the Thursday
before we race on the weekend.
So it's impossible.
We can't set up a track on the sim because you, you have no idea what you're doing.
Um, and in rally the, to get all the, um, specifics, right.
To replicate exactly what a track might look like that, how the car behave in, in circuit
racing, they can make it a lot more representative.
So you can kind of learn tracks and get a good idea of what, what you're doing.
Um, off-road is a lot.
A lot more tricky.
So we just, just wing it a lot.
I'm here for that.
Um, usually we go all the way back to the start, but I'm just curious about all these
So let's do that.
Let's go back to Molly as a little kid.
Can you describe yourself, what you're like and how did you find yourself getting into
I think, I think I've always been competitive.
I think that's something that has always been there, but when I was young, I loved horses
and wanted to be a horse rider.
And go to the Olympics.
That was my dream as a little, a little kid, I don't know where it came from, but I'm like
the man from snow river.
I used to watch it on repeat every weekend.
Um, and my, my parents are involved in motor sports.
So my mum is a professional co-driver.
So they're the ones that sit next to the driver in rallies and give them all the information
on how fast the road is ahead of them.
So that was her job.
So I grew up around it and I kind of just thought it was a normal thing for your mum
to go and do on the weekend.
Um, which was pretty cool.
I think that shaped my influence and getting involved.
It was only really when I was getting my license for the road that I went to a rally school
that my dad was running at the time, just as a driver training exercise more than anything
And that was when I actually experienced, you know, driving a rally car on gravel for
the first time myself.
And then after that, I kind of clicked why, why they were doing it, um, and why they loved
And then from there I just, yeah, it didn't stop.
That's very cool.
Was your dad getting you to go, like, did your parents push you into it or did he genuinely
want you to do it?
I think he was the one that pushed me to do the safety part of it.
It was, it was genuinely a safety thing.
I mean, there was always, they never said you can't do it, but they also never pushed
it cause they know what a tough sport it is.
So it was always, you know, if I showed an interest for it, they would support it, but
it was never going to be pushed from them.
But then, you know, I think there was probably a part of them that were a bit, by the time
I got to 16 and hadn't showed an interest, they were like, oh damn.
Um, and, and then I, yeah, they were like, well, you need to learn how to drive properly,
So it was very much from that point of view.
So my sister and my, myself both went and did it, my sister did it and then moved on
and she's a really successful barrister and has no interest in driving race cars.
So we both went very, very different paths, but for me, having that first experience of
sliding in a car, I was like, man, this is the best.
And coming back to your mum, was she kind of like to hear a woman in that role, like
was she kind of part of a generation that pioneered the way for women in racing or were
Were there more women like her in that, during that time as well?
You can look back and there's definitely been some trailblazers and my mum's definitely
one of those, but there weren't very many.
So there was an Australian co-driver before her, but most of the time when she would go
to a rally, she would be, if not the only one of the very few and to do it professionally
as well, she was the only one to do it again as her job.
So for me, I didn't appreciate how special that was.
And then when we talk about females in motorsport and just sport more broadly, and we talk about
how important visibility is, that was only when we started having those conversations
and I was being involved in Fire Profile Motorsport that I kind of looked back and was like, oh
yeah, that's right.
It's kind of cool that she did that.
She did that because I never, I could see how difficult it was and how much commitment
required and all of those things, but I also saw what was possible.
So it was never when I got involved a question of...
It's not a place for a woman.
It was just like, this is going to be really hard.
Do I want to do it?
How did she get into it?
And it was, yeah, like a father-daughter bonding thing.
He was completely mad and he bought a rally car and said, Doral, do you want to jump in?
And she was 18 and said, why not?
And he wasn't very good, but she was really good.
So they crashed a lot and then mum kind of moved on to more competitive pathways.
He just kept doing it for fun.
That's very, very cool.
So you're 16 and you go to this safe driving course and then what?
From there, I was actually at boarding school at the time and the president of the local
car club, Paul Kennedy, signed me out of boarding school on the weekend and lent me a car and
we went and did a motocana, which is basically on a big skid pan, so like a big concrete
kind of car park.
And they set up witch's hats in it.
It's all quite slow and you just have to kind of do a certain way around the witch's
hats as fast as you can.
So I did that in his little Honda Civic.
And yeah, they started doing kind of grassroots stuff like that and then yeah, progressed
up to doing rallies and then decided after I left school that I was going to move to
the UK and be a rally driver.
What is it that you love about driving?
There's many things.
I think when I first drove and the kind of fundamental aspect of it is just the, like,
the buzz and the adrenaline rush and that feeling when you're sort of lining a car up
for the corner and you're sliding in and you're aiming for the apex and when you can line
all that together, it just, it's the best fun I've ever had.
I think also then when you add on top the challenge and the teamwork and you've got
this whole group of people around you and you're trying to navigate through all these
places you've never seen before or seen once and, you know, to get it right is so hard.
It's kind of quite addictive when you get this task out and then you work with all these people.
You're trying to get the car ready, trying to make the car better.
It's kind of something that you, when you do, you can never do it perfectly.
You're always trying to chase that carrot a bit and I think I love that aspect of it too.
While you're talking, I was thinking about the video I saw recently with the cows on
For people who haven't seen that, can you?
Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
That went really well.
Yeah, it did because it was epic.
That was, that was quite intense.
For people who haven't seen it, can you describe the moment?
So we were, it was this year.
We were doing Rally Queensland and we came around.
A corner in, I think it was in Top Gear, we were doing about 160 at the time or something
when we came around the corner and there was literally a herd of cows across the road.
Not just one, a whole, a whole herd and I was going way too fast to stop.
And so I just, yeah, like honestly, when I came around and saw the cows, I thought like
this car, and I don't own the car either.
So I was going to have to, if I damage the car, I have to pay to fix it.
Even if it's the cow's fault?
So, so I, I was coming around and I saw that.
I'm like, I can't afford to be in this situation.
How did you have time?
You're going 160.
How do you even have time to think that?
I think in Rally that's, you're always thinking about that.
You just, you are very calm and collected.
But yeah, so I, yeah, obviously you started braking as fast as I could and, and there
was kind of a bit of a gutter on the side of the road.
So I sort of went to the side and had a wheel in the gutter, which is also pretty dangerous
because quite often there's like logs or bits of driveway that, that come through.
So if you'd hit something at that speed in the gutter, you would have, the car would
have barrel rolled.
So, so I was lucky there wasn't anything there and, and we kind of slid down in the, in the
gutter and then a couple of the cows moved to the side and it was literally like a gap,
just the side of, size of the car that presented itself and we managed to go around.
And then afterwards I was, my co-driver actually had to start telling me to concentrate again
because I was laughing so hard because I just, I just couldn't believe I'd got away with
it because I was just the whole time as I was braking and sliding down and watching
these cows, I was just like, that's the rally over.
It's probably the championship.
Don't have enough money to fix this car.
This is going to be bad.
A bit of disbelief.
You absolutely nailed it.
Wait, so there's no one like around the track just checking that there's no cows crossing?
Well, I mean, there was supposed to have been and afterwards they put someone else there
to try and make, yeah.
So, I mean, that's like a very rare scenario and there's a lot of kind of effort to make
sure that that doesn't happen.
So it was very much a anomaly.
You don't expect to see that, which is, yeah, one of the other things why it was so surprising
to come around the corner and be faced with that.
So it's not a usual occurrence.
Sometimes there's the odd kangaroo you have to dodge, but yeah, herd of cows, not so
I'm so impressed that you were that calm.
I mean, you're a professional, so it kind of makes sense.
So you found a lot of success.
You've had a significant amount of success in your career.
So going back to 2007 and 2008, how old were you then?
How old are we talking?
I would have, yeah, been like 18.
So still like back end of your teenage years, you won back to back Australian rally championships
in the F16 class.
What is the F16 class for those who don't know racing?
That was our category.
So it was front wheel drive 1.6 liter cars.
So it's, I mean, in Australia and part of the reason why I then moved overseas is those
kind of junior categories, there's not a huge amount of depth.
So, I mean, it's good to have that title.
But it wasn't like there was 10, 20 cars in that field.
And then to keep progressing up, you basically had to have the budget to go to the top level.
Whereas in the UK, they had a lot of what they call one make series that a lot more
So that was kind of after that, it was the decision to go overseas where there's a lot
more junior categories.
And it's kind of the Mecca of rally over in Europe to try and give it a plug that way.
How did it feel when you got over to give that a crack?
It felt like I hadn't thought it through.
In my mind, I was like, I was, cause I started uni and then I walked out of uni and was like,
I don't have time for this.
I'm just going to go over and see what happens.
I've made lots of phone calls and lined up a bunch of things.
Half of them fell over just before I left.
And then I remember getting there just, I think I had a bit of like a romantic idea
of what this journey and chasing my dream would be.
And then you arrive there and it's cold.
And I landed in Milton Keynes, which if anyone has been to the UK and been to Milton Keynes,
it's not the quintessential.
British little cottage that you would imagine.
And then at that point realized that I was very far from home and didn't know anyone
and didn't really have enough money to make it all work and was going to have to try and
So it was an amazing experience, but definitely quite lonely that first year, very daunting.
It got a bit overwhelming when it became real.
What is it like being part of a sport where the financial constraints are so real?
Like you kind of touched on that example.
Like if you're doing footy or another sport, like I can literally go down to the park and
kick a ball for hours and hours on end.
You could be the best driver in the world, but you might not get your shot.
Like what is that kind of pressure like?
It's a good point.
It's just really tough.
I think it's an amazing sport and full of amazing people and it's such a great world
to be around, but it's also pretty cutthroat because you need to, it's not a skill.
You're just, you're not born like a marathoner.
A marathon runner might be genetically born to have the right body type for that.
And yes, they have to train hard, but also you're born with some assets for that.
With driving, it's very much a learned skill.
You have to have seat time.
You might have a good aptitude for picking it up, but you need to practice.
To practice, you need money.
Kind of you need results to get money, but to get the results, you need to practice.
It's a tough cycle.
When you look at the Formula One paddock, the percentage of drivers that are incredibly
talented, that have worked their way up, but the amount of money that's been behind that
process to get those opportunities, that is the larger percentage of the drivers at the
So it is a harsh reality of the sport that there are a lot of really good drivers that
didn't get the shots that you could say they deserved.
So I think I sort of learned very early on that you have to take any opportunity, do
whatever you can.
You can work from the ground up, but also you have to think about it in a bit more of
like a business sense and how you're going to create these opportunities.
Because it's not just about me wanting to go and drive and have fun because there's
I mean, that would be great if someone just wanted to pay for that.
If you do, let me know.
But it's not really the reality.
She's on the hunt.
So you take this huge risk.
You move over there.
You're feeling overwhelmed.
What do you do next?
I was very lucky that there was a team over there that kind of took me under their wing.
So I was working at the workshop.
So I didn't have to pay them to work on the car.
They rented me the car for next to nothing.
Which I don't really know how it all happened.
But yeah, it did.
And we did the first events.
We're actually coming into the final round.
And the last, well, there was three of us.
And whoever won that rally would win the championship.
And there was some prize money.
So this was kind of, I thought, my shot to be able to get something done.
I was able to get some funds to continue.
And then the fuel pump, which is in that car, like $150 part, broke with the second last
stage while we were leading.
And it all kind of fell over.
So I thought, yeah, at that point that I was coming back home.
And then there was actually another team that were just a family-run team that were passionate
about motorsport.
And they kind of saw what happened.
And they said, here, use our car for a year for nothing.
So it was so many kind of those stories.
Where you'd meet someone and something happens and leads to something.
And then the year after was a scholarship that Pirelli were running in the junior WRC.
So it was kind of hard to predict those moments.
But you had to kind of be there and take one step and do something to put yourself in the right place
at the right time to meet someone else.
And that's kind of been the story of my career.
What has your experience been like as a female in motorsport?
I think, you know, when I started, you know,
when I started and I suppose having my mum as a role model, I didn't really think too much about it.
It was just more about I want to go out there and do the job as the driver.
And that's the good thing about motorsport.
It's one of the only sports where men and women compete on an equal footing.
So there's no reason for it to be any different.
I think when you go up through the junior categories, particularly like overseas, everyone wants to watch what you do.
And I think all the other young boys don't want to get beaten by a girl.
And there's a little bit of that sort of banter going on.
In the background.
And so there's a lot of things I think now looking back on, I probably would have pulled up.
But at the time it was like, oh, yeah, I'm cool.
You kind of want that acceptance almost.
You don't want to be that girl that pushes back.
So I think looking back, there's probably a lot of that.
But at the same time, I was very lucky to have a lot of good people around me.
And the majority of people in the sport want to see more women there, more women succeed.
So I think once you're in there and with the right people, there was no shortage of support from that side as well.
And you touched on F1 and kind of that percentage of drivers.
There's the F1 Academy now for girls.
Do you think there's enough being done to give more opportunities for women and girls?
I mean, there's so much more that's been done.
If I look at my career and I often think, you know, if I was starting my career now, if I was 10 years younger,
what would the pathway be?
Because things like Extreme A for my career have changed that completely.
So we've made a lot of ground.
And I think the really important thing, the F1 Academy is providing more accessible seat time,
which is so hard to find, and the opportunity to develop because you can't find out where you're going to get to
unless you have the opportunity to develop and also the visibility for young girls.
And I think that's ultimately the key.
Because you see the percentage.
The percentage at grassroots.
And then if you look at how difficult it is to make a career in motorsport for anyone, male or female,
and if the percentage that we start with of females is so small,
to be able to find that needle in a haystack out of an eye of a needle in a haystack,
it's going to be near impossible.
So I think what the Academy and Extreme A and those things are doing is encouraging more girls to start off.
So we're getting in the right direction, but I think we've still got to let that feed through.
I don't think it's an overnight thing because the top handful are so good and they've been crafting that for so long.
We need more, a better split at the bottom at the grassroots level to find the ones to come through.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Before we get into Extreme E, 2016 Australian Rally Champion, what was that like?
Sounds pretty cool.
Yeah, it was a pretty surreal moment in my career and something I never knew it would be.
I never knew it would be possible.
And it was my first year with Subaru.
It was my first year actually having a job as being a rally driver rather than just trying to find all the funding
and spend everything I earn on rallying.
That was actually my job.
So that was pretty surreal for it to come together.
And the car we were running wasn't the fastest in the field.
It was like a different specification for want of a better way to explain.
So we were just kind of the, we had to just be consistent.
So it was like a bit of like, really.
Underwhelming story of just, you know, consistently getting points and getting points.
And it was enough to be champions at the end.
So it wasn't something that we went out.
We went out to the start of the year with if we can get top five, that'll be a really good result.
And I think it's probably one of those things as well that just to remember when you're doing your sport,
you think about the external outcome too much, you can get distracted.
Whereas when you're not really thinking about that, we were just doing our own thing.
And then just to come out as champions was, was a pretty big moment.
And have I got it right?
You have first and only woman and the youngest to ever do it.
My best mate, Harry, pipped me for the youngest now because the year after he wanted the younger
So at that time though, you were the youngest.
We will still put that in practice.
First female driver.
That's pretty cool.
And I'm, and I'm conscious of like, I mean, we're called the female athlete project.
I'm conscious of like, not always wanting to like, put those labels and have those conversations,
but I think it's a really unique sport that you do in that space.
Like, I think it's, it's very different to say AFL where there is an AFL W competition,
where there's so many women who are doing it.
Like, I think it's quite an incredible achievement what you did.
I think it's, it's important from a, like the broader perspective for the sport to see
it's possible and for sponsors to say it's possible.
So it's not, you know, you're not investing in the dream.
You're not investing in the drivers to be there for the publicity card.
And people say, oh yeah, and we've got, we've got a girl like to actually put in the investment
and see the results from a performance perspective.
I think that's, that's really important point to be able to prove for our sport.
And then for the younger girls watching as well.
But for me personally, I guess you say it's not, I didn't at that moment be like, yes,
I'm the first female.
I was like, man, I just won the championship.
If I'd been the second or the 10th, I don't think it would have taken how special it was
Bez and I on the wrap always talk about Xtreme E and your work because we love it.
It's pretty mental.
Can you explain Xtreme E?
So Xtreme E is relatively new.
It started in 21 and it basically takes 550 horsepower, all electric off-road SUVs to
remote parts of the world that have been affected by climate change.
And there are two drivers per team and they race combined.
So rather like in F1 where the two teammates are competing against each other, still on
your session is combined with both your laps and one driver has to be male and one driver
has to be female.
So it's a completely new concept on so many levels.
So to be part of it from the outset has been really special, but you've got incredible
You've got almost half the field is owned by ex-Formula One drivers.
You've got McLarens and Dreadys.
You've got some really big drivers, like some of my idols in the field as well.
So to be kind of at that.
It's a real caliber of international motorsport, but also with all these new technologies and
trying to, rather than just have it about racing cars, it's how can our sport be a bit
more forward thinking and how can we be part of improving gender equality, accessibility.
There's a lot more females just in general across from engineers to mechanics, team managers,
all of those sorts of things.
And then also from the climate and sustainability perspective, how all the technology that we're
working on, we see on the road cars and in the automotive industry, how motorsport is
such a part of developing that as well.
So yeah, it's been, I suppose, career changing from my perspective to be involved.
That climate change and sustainability part, because obviously it's very unique in Xtreme
E, how it's such a core part of it.
Where did that come from?
Was there one person that kind of wanted to change it or was there a group of people that
wanted to do it differently?
So Alejandro Agag, who's the founder, he founded Formula E, the electric circuit series.
He's the founder of Xtreme E. They're incredible thinkers and very ambitious.
I mean, it was a big project.
So everything basically sails on a ship to each location.
The car's on a ship, right?
Completely purpose-built cars.
They're actually developing and testing the hydrogen car at the moment.
So from next year, it'll be the world's first hydrogen series.
So it'll be the electric motors with hydrogen fuel cell.
So it'll change to Xtreme H.
So it's obviously an opportunity as well for how motorsport can be part of that.
So yeah, I think a lot of people, when it started and when they announced the plans, were kind
of like, yeah, we'll wait and see.
We'll wait and see the first race happen and then that it happened and to have the level
We've got Carlos Sainz, owns a team, Lewis Hamilton, owned a team for a number of years,
Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, to have these names all buy into it as well.
I think it says a lot about what they're trying to achieve.
So it's locations that have been impacted by climate change?
I mean, I think we probably, when you look at the world, that could be anywhere.
But yeah, the idea is to put on really exciting racing and it wouldn't work if we weren't
having really exciting racing and we race in like a head-to-head format.
So there's four or five cars out on the track at a time.
So it's absolute carnage half the time.
Really good entertainment, but the whole purpose is to bring it to an environment to show our
To see the real impacts and to be able to educate them on, this is like we went to Greenland
and we went and walked on the glaciers and you could see all the ice melting.
You could see like the black color of lots of the ice on the top level from the pollution.
So to be able to kind of take a racing audience and motorsport audience, which probably not
always the people that are buying the electric cars, to be able to show these are the issues,
but also this is how motorsport and cars, we don't have to lose the excitement and the
We can do all of those things to help be trying to work with new technologies and technologies
that are going to move us forward.
Can you take us like to the start line, you're sitting in the car and you're about to start,
how are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
What is like your preparation in that moment?
Yeah, it's a pretty intense moment and I remember actually in Greenland, I was lining up for
the final and I lined up and then I sort of moved my head over and I could see Sebastian
Loeb who's nine time world rally champion, the most successful rally driver there's ever
And my idol growing up, like I have sign posters of him in my bedroom.
Oh, that's so cool.
He was next to me and I just had to turn around like, don't look, don't look, don't look because
He was literally in the car next to you.
Right next to me.
So yeah, it was pretty incredible and we were one, two out of that start, so that was, yeah,
that was pretty awesome.
But yeah, it's very much, you just have to, and probably for yourself and like in any
sport, if you try and think about...
All the things, all the variables, like you'll just go completely mad.
So it's just very much a, this is the process go through, we run through with the engineer
that all the maps and all the settings are in the right spots.
You're looking at the countdown and then it's just, you have your rough plan for the start
that never goes to plan, but because you've got five cars and you know your starting grid,
so it's very much, my plan is I want to take this line or I want to try and move over at
this point, or if this car's ahead, I'm going to go here.
And so you just, you've got all those plans in your head and then you're just trying to
only think about from the start to the first corner.
And then once you do that, figure out the next little step.
And you said, so it's the Thursday before you race that you find out the track?
We do a track walk.
And then the next time you're on the track is you're racing.
So we have a practice day on Friday.
So we get four laps.
So you're trying to, and then they can water the track or because there's not an actual
racetrack because we're racing in all these different locations and the surfaces are different,
the evolution of the track is different.
So the cars, you might get some ruts in some corners, they might water down some corners
that are more slippery from one session to the other.
So you have a general idea of what you want to happen.
And then it's very much a case of just trying to be in the moment and feel the grip and
feel where the edge of grip is and trying to get as close to it without going over it,
which sometimes happens.
When you're saying they're watering it down to make it more slippery?
For dust, because you're racing so close with the other cars, if it's too dusty, if you
get behind, you literally can't see.
That even happens in Saudi when it's quite sandy and there's been laps that I've done
where I don't even, you don't see where you're going.
So how does that work?
It's quite exciting.
Some of the onboard footage when you're chasing, so you kind of know the track, you can see
You just kind of have to look at where you want to go.
And then if you're getting really close, there goes into a moment where if you're crossing
behind or coming up really close behind where you can maybe see a tail light or something,
and that's your beacon of kind of where.
That's all you can see.
And then you just go through these moments.
You're like, I think I need to be here.
And then it just sort of goes a bit blind and then you hope when it clears, you're in
It's quite exciting.
And probably on that element, like you're doing a very high risk sprint.
And it's a sport.
Like I imagine there's a lot of safety precautions in place, but like environments like that
where you can't really see where you're going and you're driving very fast.
Like what is that?
Is there a fear element to it?
I don't think, I think as you say, like safety is such a core aspect of what we do.
So it looks a bit crazy from the outside, but I mean the cars are built to be able to
withstand doing what we do.
And there's been plenty of incidences and touch wood, nothing major.
There's like some cars that have been hurt.
So I know that, you know, yes, it's an inherently dangerous sport, but to me it's a very calculated
risk and we've prepared for all these scenarios and these kind of risks you're taking within
that are, you know, are very calculated as well.
Like I roughly know where I'm going and I just know that if, you know, if you backed
off to wait until it's 100% clear, you're just, you're out of the race.
So you just sort of have to at some point, yeah, just work out what you think you need
to do and hope it works.
And if it does work, that's the best feeling.
Like that's what keeps you coming back for more.
Like when you found the gap between the cows.
Then that's, that's magic.
That's what you live for.
It's the thrills we're here for.
Um, looking at, I guess your career and we, we touched on Mollie Raleigh and your brand
as an athlete, but, um, two things I want to touch on is your garage that you've built
with your partner.
Can you tell me about that?
That actually happened in hotel quarantine.
Well, it was, it was very, very early.
So I was one of the people that got stuck overseas and couldn't get home because of
And then, yeah, when I finally did some hotel quarantines and I was sitting there on realestate.com
Found this little, it's only 77 square meters.
So it's a very, very small little place.
It was just like bare concrete.
And I think it's just always been a bit of a dream of mine when I was living in the UK,
I was working for some big race teams and to go every day to these amazing huge buildings
where everything's white.
cars a bit like formula one style thought this would be so cool to have my own place where i
can be a little bit in control of my own destiny as well a bit with what i put in there and then
the content that we do for sponsors and how i can build that business side of what we do uh so it
always been a bit of a dream and then i found this place and it was small enough for like a starting
point great and then uh dan my partner and i we just figured we didn't we got someone to help with
the plumbing and electrics because we you know thought those were fairly important things to get
quite important yeah then we yeah everything else we did ourselves wow so it was a it was a big
project um but yeah that's a solid effort very cool either of you have any trade experience oh
dan used to be a mechanic for for many years so it's very practical yeah um yeah we just like
youtubed it and then did it and you don't want to look too closely at some of the finishes it's
probably play on all i'll say play on but yeah it was sort of the the vibe we were going for was
like google headquarters versus a formula one workshop
okay something that's very clinical and purposeful but also just like a cool place to hang out the
weekend yeah nice have friends around and watch motorsport and yeah great i like that and the
other one is the doco so you've you've started filming well you've got a huge bank of footage
what what i guess is the reason behind wanting to tell your story and document what you're doing
yeah so a mate of mine sean is is an incredible videographer and he's come to some events and
so we sort of had this idea we did a couple of uh pieces at the end of
following the comeback to the australian championship and and we just we thought there
was a real opportunity to show yes the racing side but just so much of stuff goes on behind it and
you know from prepping the car in the workshop getting all the mostly volunteers to come and
help and you know travel to events and and bring all those things together and kind of the highs
and lows that you go through in motorsport um i mean there's probably probably way more lows than
highs like anything you're probably trying to achieve so i think yeah to kind of capture all
that um we thought we were going to do a little bit of a little bit of a tour of the
motorsport and i thought that was a really cool story there so that's what we're working on and i
think it's good for you know visibility we talk about females in sport but also just
rally and motorsport in general to kind of tell that story and i mean we're definitely not on the
budget levels of drive to survive but i think that um you know that similar element of actually
showing people what it takes and what it's like i think it's been really interesting to watch
uh people that maybe don't know that much about motorsport to really see it in a different light
i think that's that's a really cool thing and a good story to show yeah absolutely what is your
bucket list do you have a bucket list achievement a race of champions i can't wait i'm gonna be there
i'm so gonna be there yeah awesome it's so great yeah and i think something like that definitely i
mean yeah like to do dakar was definitely a bucket list item and i would love to have another crack
at that um yeah the australian championship i'd love to have it we got really close to
a second title um so i would love to have another crack at that one and and yeah the stuff we're
doing with extreme h um and then i've just started doing some changing the letter crazy and then with
rallycross as well been doing more of that and i'm like at the very beginning of that sort of
journey so i think um in the in the immediate future fueling on that's kind of the the focus
yeah at the moment but but yeah i think race of champions is kind of a like the ultimate to sort
of reach a point i suppose where
we don't we don't have we have the olympics or anything like that in motorsport we have a
motorsport games event but this is kind of i guess one of those pinnacles where if you've been selected
to represent your country it's pretty cool absolutely congratulations i can't wait to
come watch i'm excited it's honestly gonna be awesome yeah that's very cool thank you so much
for your time today i've loved chatting and your energy and your storytelling has been amazing so
thank you so much supporter of everything you do as well so thanks for bringing all these stories
you're awesome thank you
you very much i appreciate that a lot thanks so much for listening if you got something out of
this episode i would absolutely love it if you could send it on to one person who you think
might enjoy it otherwise subscribe give us a review and make sure you follow us on instagram
at the female athlete project to stay up to date with podcast episodes
merch drops and of course news and stories about epic female athletes