Maria Antonietta Avanzo

Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo was the first Italian female racetrack driver and the most famous Italian woman racing driver of the interwar period. She competed in numerous events throughout her career, including racing the Mille Miglia five times. In 1921, she famously drove a twelvecylinder Packard 299 on the beach of the island of Fan, in Denmark. She married her husband Eustachio Avanzo in 1908 with whom she had two children, Luisa in 1909 and Renzo in 1911. In her career she fought for the right to compete as a woman, and became an activist for equality for women and a symbol of early feminism.

Maria Antonietta Avanzo was born in 1889 at Contarina, now Porto Viro, near Rovigo and learned to drive on her fathers De Dion Bouton tricycle. Before the Great War she married Eustachio Avanzo, with whom she later had two children, and they moved to Rome. Both her father and her husband encouraged her driving talents, and Eustachio bought her a 35160hp SPA sportscar to race. In 1920 she began her racing career at the wheel of the SPA 3550 in the Giro di Lazio.

Source: Wikipedia