Nicci Daly’s Formula Female Squad Tackles World Cup!

Nicci Daly is best known as one of the Green Army, Ireland’s Hockey team who took Silver at the World Cup in 2018. As well as this though, the Rathfarnham native is a qualified Motorsport Engineer and runs Formula Female, an initiative aimed at increasing numbers in Motorsport- not just as drivers, but as engineers and other roles too.
Last weekend, Daly tackled a World Cup of a different type when she entered a Formula Female team in the Tillotson World Cup karting event, staged at Whiteriver Park at Collon in county Louth.

The event had originally been scheduled to run in Italy, but with Covid travel restrictions, the company decided to relocate the event to Ireland, giving top Irish karters the opportunity to take on some of the best international talent- on home ground! Nicci has worked closely with Tillotson company and uses one of their karts for her Go Girls Karting STEM workshops so this was an ideal opportunity to enter a team. Nicci had recently been to France with top X30 karter Alyx Coby to compete in the IAME France Ladies Cup,  so she was an obvious choice, whilst Naas schoolgirl Roisin Sweeney has been progressing well in her Tillotson kart so she was also added to the team. Cork’s Ellen Donnelly was to take the third place on the team but unfortunately ran into licence issues in the week ahead of the race and had to withdraw.

Nicci Daly: “Formula Female was proud to put together an all female team into the Tillotson T4 World Cup. We are passionate about achieving equality and closing the gender gap in such a male dominated field. To achieve this, visibility and opportunity matter. Two females in a grid of 36 drivers is disappointing, but the most encouraging part is how competitive they were. Alyx was the second fastest driver on the day, missing out on the fastest lap by just 7 thousandths of a second, while Roisin set her own personal best lap, smashing her previous best by almost 2 seconds. Each driver is at very different stages of experience but the one thing they have in common is the desire to push the boundaries of what might be possible.  Both Alyx and Roisin are great examples of powerful female role models, who highlight and endorse the fact that women are well suited for roles in male dominated fields. We are so proud of their performances against the top T4 drivers. We believe their efforts and attitude will continue to drive females forward in achieving equality!

Alyx Coby: “Taking part in the T4 World Cup was a great experience and I was so thankful to Formula Female for the opportunity, it sadly wasn’t a successful weekend but I really enjoyed driving against a massive grid of drivers and besides complications I thought I was happy with my driving. Being one of the fastest drivers out there I thought I could of definitely got a great result, but all together it was a great event “

Roisin Sweeney: “I had an amazing experience at the T4 World Cup thanks to Formula Female – I learned so much during the day and went faster around the track then I ever did before all day! I also learned loads about my starts and it was great to compete in such a big field of talented drivers. I already can’t wait for the next one!”

For more information on Formula Female or the Go Girls STEM initiative, click HERE

Header image-  Alyx Coby at speed-  from Marc Quinlivan Photography