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The Colombian driver made history by becoming the first woman to drive a Formula 1 car. Now, while racing in the European Le Mans Series, she assures that she maintains her dream of competing in the highest category. This year she presents her book inspired by her: ‘The girl faster than the wind’.
Tatiana Calderón discovered very early on what it meant to be a pioneer. At the age of nine she got into a kart for the first time, the single-seaters that pave the way in motorsports, and at 12 she became the first woman to win the national championship in this category in Colombia.
It was a bittersweet success because it came hand in hand with criticism and rejection comments for being a woman competing with men. Tatiana speaks of those voices in the book ‘The girl faster than the wind’.
“It was a process of reflection,” says Tatiana in the framework of the Bogota International Book Fair. She says that she seeks to inspire with this story more women who want to follow in her footsteps in this sport. “It’s okay to be different. There are many things that society imposes on us.”
At 30 years old, Tatiana currently competes in the European Le Mans Series with Team Virage. For her it is a dream to run against her “idol” Juan Pablo Montoya and, moreover, almost unexpectedly.
Karol G’s help in the midst of a moment of uncertainty
She acknowledges that she was not planning to compete this year after a difficult time in 2022. In the second part of that season, Tatiana did not have sponsorship, but the singer Karol G appeared to support her under the slogan ‘Bichota’, already world famous. Her compatriot helped her to return to Formula 2 in the final stretch of last year and to “keep dreaming”.
That dream is still to compete in Formula 1. Tatiana has been very close to that goal. In 2018, at the Hermanos Rodríguez Autodrome in Mexico City, she became the first woman to drive a Formula 1 car when she was a test driver for the Sauber team, now Alfa Romeo.
“You never know when opportunities come your way. In the end, I think I’m ready to make that leap to Formula 1. I don’t know if Formula 1 is ready for me, ”she says.
Tatiana highlights that today there are no female team directors in the big top of motorsport. “More women are needed. The person who gave me the opportunity to be a development driver for the Sauber team was a woman.”
The creation process behind ‘The girl faster than the wind’
The words of the Costa Rican Gabriela Cordero, social communicator and publicist, tell the story of Tatiana. “We wanted to talk to those girls who were coming after Tatiana,” she says. “Telling this story is telling the story of many women who have gone through the same thing in motorsport, but also in many other disciplines.”
Gabriela created a work as a story, seeking to reach a child or youth audience. It is a common thread centered on those first barriers that Tatiana broke down, but with a message capable of being transmitted to various audiences.
Elements of magic, adventure or family values were added because “sometimes it is so difficult to talk about gender stereotypes”, Gabriela emphasizes.
These pages are the result of the work shared between two women who move in different worlds, but who found in this book shared “therapeutic elements”, as recognized by both Tatiana and Gabriela.
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