Katherine Legge

Katherine Legge
Legge at the 2013 Indianapolis 500
Nationality	British
Born	(1980-07-12) 12 July 1980 Guildford, Surrey, England
Formula E career
Debut season	2014–15
Former teams	Amlin Aguri
Starts	2
Championships	0
Wins	0
Poles	0
Fastest laps	0
Best finish	34th in 2014–15
Finished last season	34th
IndyCar Series career
11 races run over 2 years
Team(s)	No. 6 (Dragon Racing)
Best finish	26th
First race	2012 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg)
Last race	2013 Indianapolis 500 (Indy)
Wins Podiums Poles 0 0 0
Champ Car career
28 races run over 2 years
Years active	2006–2007
Team(s)	PKV Racing (2006) Dale Coyne Racing (2007)
Best finish	15th – 2007
First race	2006 Grand Prix of Long Beach (Long Beach)
Last race	2007 Gran Premio Tecate (Mexico City)
Wins Podiums Poles 0 0 0
Statistics current as of 27 May 2012.
Previous series
2001–2004 2003 2005 2006–2007 2008–2010 2012–2013	Formula Renault UK British Formula Three Atlantic Championship Champ Car Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters IndyCar Series

Katherine Legge (/ˈlɛɡ/ LEG; born 12 July 1980)^[1] is a British auto racing driver. She is also featured in Richard Hammond's Crash Course.

Racing career

Early racing and Atlantics

Prior to joining the Toyota Atlantic series, Guildford-born Legge raced in several developmental open-wheel series in Britain, including Formula Three, Formula Renault and Formula Ford. In 2000 she was the first woman to achieve a pole in a Zetec race. In 2001 she beat Kimi Räikkönen's lap record and achieved a pole, and she was the first woman to receive the BRDC's "Rising Star" accolade. She received the 2005 RACER Magazine "Most Promising Road Racer of The Year" award, a title that had been awarded every year since 2002 to A. J. Allmendinger. Other drivers that have won the award include Räikkönen, Jenson Button, Cristiano da Matta, Alex Barron, Giancarlo Fisichella, Greg Moore, and Gil de Ferran.

In November 2005, Legge became the first woman to test a Formula One car since Sarah Fisher in 2002, when she tested on the second and third days (22 and 23 November) of the Minardi team's final testing session at Vallelunga.^[2] After she crashed after 2 laps on her first run on the track, it was decided to postpone the test until the following day, on which she completed 27 laps with a best lap time of 1:21.176.^[3] She was also the first woman to test an A1 Grand Prix car, on 9–11 December 2005 with A1 Team Great Britain.^[4]

In 2005, Legge competed in the Toyota Atlantic Championship with Polestar Motor Racing. She won the series opener at Long Beach in her first career Atlantic start. In doing so, she became the first woman to win a developmental open-wheel race in North America. Legge went on to win her second and third races of the season at Edmonton and San Jose. She finished the season 3rd in the championship with three wins and five podiums. She also received the Toyota Atlantic BBS Rising Star 2005 Award.

Champ Car

In the 2005–2006 off-season, Legge tested a Champ Car once for the Rocketsports Racing and twice for PKV Racing. In February 2006, it was announced that she would drive for PKV Racing in the 2006 Champ Car season. In June, she became the first woman to lead a lap in series history, leading 12 laps at Milwaukee.^[5] Legge suffered a violent accident at the 2006 Grand Prix of Road America when the rear wing of her car broke; she was able to walk away from the car unharmed.^[6][7]

Legge drove for Dale Coyne Racing in 2007, and her best result in the series was sixth place, twice.

DTM

Legge competing at the Hockenheimring, during the 2009 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season.

In 2008, Legge moved to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters series, driving for Colin Kolles' Futurecom TME Audi team. For 2009 and 2010 she raced for the Abt Sportsline team, who were the 2008 champions. For 2009 she was the only one of the 5 drivers in the Abt Sportline team using the previous year's car.

Return to the US

In January 2012, Legge signed with Dragon Racing in the IndyCar Series, alongside Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais.^[8] Legge reached a two-year agreement with sponsor TrueCar as part of their Women Empowered campaign.^[9] However, since the Lotus engines were shown to be uncompetitive, the team made a change to Chevrolet engines. But team owner Jay Penske could only procure one Chevrolet engine lease agreement for the team, so they could only enter one car per race after Indianapolis. Therefore, for the remainder of 2012, Dragon entered Bourdais at the road and street courses, and Legge at oval tracks, except for Sonoma Raceway where both drivers were able to compete.^[10] Legge finished 26th in points, competing in ten of the 15 races, and had a best finish of ninth in the 2012 MAVTV 500 IndyCar World Championships at Auto Club Speedway.

In 2013, Legge left IndyCar to join the DeltaWing program in the United SportsCar Championship. Legge competed in the 2014 and 2015 seasons for DeltaWing.

In May 2015, Legge announced her involvement with the Grace Autosport project to enter the 2016 Indianapolis 500 race. The team will be all-female and intends to help promote technology and engineering as a career path for young women. The team has confirmed it has the support of the FIA's Women in Motorsport Commission.^[11]

Legge joined Michael Shank Racing in 2017 to drive an Acura NSX GT3 at the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

Formula E

Legge signed for the Amlin Aguri team to compete in the inaugural season of the Formula E electric open-wheel series.^[12] She raced in the first 2 rounds before being dropped in favour of Salvador Durán.

Personal

Legge is a member of the Women in Motorsport Commission of the FiA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile).

Motorsports career results

Legge during the 2009 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season

Complete American open-wheel racing results

(key)

Atlantic Championship

** Podium (Non-win) indicates 2nd or 3rd place finishes.

*** Top 10s (Non-podium) indicates 4th through 10th place finishes.

Champ Car

** Podium (Non-win) indicates 2nd or 3rd place finishes.

*** Top 10s (Non-podium) indicates 4th through 10th place finishes.

IndyCar Series

** Podium (Non-win) indicates 2nd or 3rd place finishes.

*** Top 10s (Non-podium) indicates 4th through 10th place finishes.

Indianapolis 500

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

(key)

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results

(key) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

• † — Retired, but was classified as she completed 90% of the winner's race distance.

Complete Formula E results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

United SportsCar Championship

(key)

24 Hours of Daytona

24 Hours of Daytona results
Year	Class	No	Team	Car	Co-drivers	Laps	Position	Class Pos.
2014	P	0	DeltaWing Racing Cars	DeltaWing DWC13	Gabby Chaves Alexander Rossi Andy Meyrick	288	61 DNF	17 DNF
2015	P	0	Claro/TracFone DeltaWing Racing	DeltaWing DWC13	Gabby Chaves Memo Rojas Andy Meyrick	42	53 DNF	16 DNF
2016	P	0	Panoz DeltaWing Racing	DeltaWing DWC13	Sean Rayhall Andy Meyrick Andreas Wirth	119	53 DNF	12 DNF

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Katherine Legge.

• Official website
• Katherine Legge on Twitter
  
• Katherine Legge driver statistics at Racing-Reference
• Katherine Legge career summary at DriverDB.com

Team Aguri
Executive Chairman Aguri Suzuki Team Principal Mark Preston Former key Personnel Gerry Hughes Keith Smout Former race drivers Nathanaël Berthon Salvador Durán António Félix da Costa Takuma Sato Katherine Legge Sakon Yamamoto FIA Formula E Cars SRT 01E