Gilmour joins top team for international EV series

Veloce Racing has signed Kiwi rally ace Emma Gilmour as its female reserve driver for the inaugural season of the Extreme E all-electric off-road SUV series starting April.

The Dunedin Suzuki dealer joins full-time racers Jamie Chadwick and Stephane Sarrazin, and male reserve Lance Woolridge in the Veloce squad.

Gilmour, 41, has competed internationally in rallying, rallycross and cross-country rallies.

She has driven for Subaru’s works team in the WRC Rally Japan and finished second in the 2009 FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship.

From 2010 to 2012, she finished second in the New Zealand Rally Championship three times running before switching to rallycross in 2014, driving for the factory Hyundai USA outfit in Global Rallycross and reaching the final in Las Vegas.

Gilmour won the FIA Women in Motorsport and Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation Cross Country Selection in 2015, beating two current Extreme E race drivers.

In 2016 she became the first woman driver to win a NZ Rally Championship event with a dominant performance in the Rally of Canterbury.

“I’m so happy to be joining Veloce Racing for the first season of Extreme E,” Gilmour says.

“This series is so innovative and exciting, with its focus on gender equality and sustainability and an incredible environmental ethos. It just feels like something really positive to be a part of.

“I’m fully committed to using my previous experience from rallying, rallycross and cross-country competition to drive Veloce Racing forward. I can’t wait to get started.”

Veloce Racing team manager Ian Davies says Gilmour brings “a tremendous amount of off-road experience to Veloce while remaining very grounded and easy to work with, and we’re all really excited to have her on-board”.

“In the current climate, we have clearly had to factor COVID-19 into all of our decisions, and one thing we have tried to do as a team is control our own destiny.

“We now have a reserve male and female driver as well as reserve engineers and other team members. We’re ready to go racing.”

The series’ opening round is the Desert X Prix in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, on April 3-4.