It’s been over five years since I first chatted to racing car driver Caitlin Wood at the Bathurst 12 hour. A lot of tarmac has gone under the wheels since then, so it was time to catch up again to see how Caitlin’s racing career has progressed.
There have been bumps along the road, but Caitlin is proud to have achieved what she’s done so far and just wants to keep pushing to do more. Some of the highpoints have been being a part of the W Series program as the Australian representative, collaborating with Puma alongside W Series and becoming a Puma brand ambassador with them in 2021, and racing on the Formula One platform.
“I think the highlight for me in the W Series was qualifying third at Spa as a reserve driver. It was a really cool moment for me because I wasn’t in the car for the whole season, it was the fifth round and I jumped in and I was able to perform, so I was really really quite happy with that, and being able to race alongside Formula One was also a really cool career moment,” Caitlin recently told Driven Women Magazine.
Winning a class out right at the Nürburgring Nordschleife racing in a BMW production car and becoming the first Australian woman to do so was also a notable achievement for Caitlin. Driving into the dark at the Nordschleife over sunset is probably one of the coolest stints Caitlin has ever done alongside doing a stint at the Bathurst 12-hour, but racing at the Nordschleife is something else for her.
“It’s such an adrenaline rush and you’re always on the edge because it’s such a demanding circuit. It’s 24 kilometres long for one lap so it requires a lot of everything! You need to be switched on mentally and also be in prime physique in terms of fitness levels, so racing out at the Nordschleife was a really cool career moment and I’m glad to have been able to do that. I would definitely go back in a heartbeat.
It was kind of hard jumping back into tin tops, so to speak, and wrapping my head around how those cars have been adapted over the years. Obviously, they have ABS and things like that so it’s a little bit different to a single seater which is a much rawer driving experience where you haven’t got ABS or anything like that helping you out. It’s very much down to the driver. Really cool to have done that and completely different as well,” exuded Caitlin.
A more recent highlight was becoming a Barbie Sports Ambassador in 2024, even if it was only for a very short period of time, at the first weekend in the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB. The announcement at the time was huge not just for Caitlin, but for Porsche, the Barbie brand, and women in motorsport in general.
“I think it was a really cool moment for me to be acknowledged by a brand the size of Barbie and for them to support what I stand for, and what we all stand for, which is equality and everything like that and trying to inspire the next generation. To be honest, I was very, very proud of the partnership, and, talk about the elephant in the room, even though it didn’t last as long as I wanted in terms of the funding for the rest of the season, I think what we achieved in that time is still really cool.
I’m still associated with Barbie and we still have a really good relationship. Hopefully we’re able to continue working on more collaborations in the future. At the end of the day, we all know motorsport is really expensive and for me personally, without the sponsorship money to go racing, it doesn’t always get put together. Being associated with them has been really, really cool. And it’s not always the on-track stuff, it’s everything that goes on behind the scenes like going to universities and speaking with young girls and also getting the young girls out to the race weekend alongside their partner charity was very, very cool,” explained Caitlin.
The first round of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB went really well even though Caitlin was racing in an older generation Clubsport against the newer model RS Porsche and in her class, Caitlin finished on the podium three times, two seconds and one third.
“For me, every single time I was in the car was something completely different in terms of weather. One minute it was coming down so heavy with rain and the next minute it was sunshine and every single session was either wet or half wet, so it was a very tricky weekend. It definitely tested my patience quite a bit because we didn’t really do any testing so I kind of went into it pretty blind. It was really successful in the end. We kept out of trouble, got ourselves on the podium in our class and enjoyed ourselves along the way, and hopefully inspired a few more young girls to get involved!” added Caitlin.
Funding in motorsport is a part of the industry, it’s part of being a racing driver, and part of being an athlete in general. So, it was disappointing for Caitlin not to see out a full season of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB because of a lack of money.
“I work my butt off to try and get in a seat every year and try and do my best, that’s all I can continue to do. Hopefully, I can continue to work with brands, sponsors and partners that want to join my journey, kind of inspire the next generation and making a little bit of change,” said Caitlin.
But as one racing car door closes another one opens and Caitlin went on to compete in the 2024 season of the Indian Racing League. The series has been really supportive of Caitlin and they’re trying to raise awareness of motorsport in India and their profile with other international drivers on the grid like Neel Jani, Jon Lancaster and Álvaro Parente.
The Indian Racing League championship is a single-seater competition with a difference with the driver’s competing in an Italian made Wolf GB08 that’s powered by a motorbike engine. They’re quite fast because of the power to weight ratio of about 450-460kgs, to roughly about 250-260bhp. Each team has two cars and of those two cars there are four drivers, so two drivers in each car, so Caitlin and her teammate Rishon. Points are calculated collectively, so it’s not an individual driver’s championship, it’s a car’s championship.
The teammates work together to try and get the greatest number of points to try and finish as high up in the championship as they can together as a team. Caitlin’s team is Bangalore Speedsters, which is supported by Mobil 1. Each weekend is made up of one qualifying and one race per driver. So, for example if one driver raced on Saturday, they’d have a free practice, a qualifying and a race all on Saturday, and then their teammate would have that following practice, qualifying and race on the Sunday, and that’s how they run the championship. In total, there are 24 drivers and 12 cars, six teams.
“We’ve been making progress. Obviously, the series has been around for a couple of years so there are a few drivers, well, quite a few drivers, that are very experienced in general and also have been in the championship for quite a few years, so you’re kind of jumping in on the back foot a little bit. But it’s been really great to be a part of,” said Caitlin.
In the first race, unfortunately Caitlin had a technical failure, so she didn’t finish the race, and then in the Chennai Street Circuit Caitlin’s team finished fifth, a result they equalled in later events as well. Racing in a night race under the lights was also really enjoyable for Caitlin and not something she was expecting to be doing this year. At the end of 2024 the season the Bangalore Speedsters ended up in sixth place overall out of the 12 teams.
“I would if I get invited back, yes, I would [return to the Indian Racing League], and if it fits in with everything. I’m more than happy to be a part of that championship. I really enjoyed my time out there and I think it’s been a lot of fun. I just genuinely can’t express how fun it has been, which is probably really nice to experience at this point in my career because a lot of racing can feel a lot of pressure, and a lot of hard work goes into everything. Don’t get me wrong, I still prepare just as hard to go out to India and do a good job, but it’s been really really fun,” said Caitlin.
Outside of racing Caitlin also does public speaking events and has done a vast variety of them over the years either at schools, universities, businesses, conferences. Caitlin talks about is her career, her own experiences, what she’s been through, because a lot of my experiences are so different and everyone likes to know what’s actually happened behind the scenes.
“Obviously, I talk about being a woman in motorsport and what that’s been like and the hurdles, but also how good it has been as well, and trying to motivate and inspire people to take that leap, get out of their comfort zone, try something new and potentially follow a path that they might not have thought they could have beforehand.
Alongside those, I also do specific talks for the younger students at university around STEM and trying to kind of open their eyes to all the career opportunities that are involved in motorsport that they might not have known were there previously,” revealed Caitlin.
For Caitlin it’s been wonderful to speak with specifically younger students and kids and get them excited and interested in motorsport, because ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s her passion. It’s a sport that has given Caitlin so much and taught her so much, so she’d love to try and pass that on to someone else.
Caitlin is also a racing coach and a driver instructor at a lot of the different circuits. She works for PalmerSport at Bedford Autodrome and at different circuits like Brands Hatch, and Donington Park, and Snetterton. Caitlin and her husband, Matt, also own MCR Motorsport, and rent out their own race cars and do one-to-one coaching with drivers who are first-timers, never done it before, just getting into either driving on a track or people that want to go racing, and trying to give them a platform to be able to do that.
But Caitlin’s ultimate goal is still the Le Mans 24 hour race, just as it was back in 2018 when I first spoke to her and she will continue to chase that dream until she can’t drive anymore, until she’s in her 70s if that’s what it takes!
“I’d really like to try and get back onto the Porsche platform if that was possible or make that progression back into Europe and do some racing back out there, which would be really good in the endurance style, maybe in a prototype, make that step up from the Wolf that I’ve been driving out in India. Really, I’ll try and keep progressing. At the end of the day, all you’ve got to do is just one step at a time and keep pushing and don’t take no for an answer, so I’ll keep pushing and see what happens,” concluded Caitlin.
You can follow Caitlin Wood on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Photographs from W Series (in car shot by Drew Gibson), Porsche GB Championship, and Indian Racing League by Shameemfahath.com