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We spoke to Susie Stoddart, a Scottish driver in Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), probably the second-highest-rated race series in the world after F1, about what it's like to be a woman in top-flight motorsport.

"Obviously, you're a female in a man's world," says Susie, "but you tend to take it light-heartedly. There is a stigma there, but then you go out and prove them wrong. "Men have such big egos! They think they're the best. They don't think a female can compete at their level. But you get nice comments, too - drivers come up to me and say 'it's tough out there, I respect you for doing what you're doing' and that means a lot.

"But more than anything else, I love racing, I love the cars, I have a lot of passion for the sport. It's fantastic. I know it's unusual for me to be here, but I love it, so why not? And when I was a little girl, there were no role models. If little girls of four, five or six see what Danica is doing, they might think 'That's what I want to do when I grow up' and get serious about karting."

There aren't many females in racing because the ability to understand the car and drive it at the limit is simply not there.

Other demon girls have proved Susie's point. Lella Lombardi outqualified the likes of Graham Hill on her day. She finished sixth in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuic. Less than two thirds of the race had been run - it was stopped after a crash which killed five spectators - so the drivers were only awarded half-points.

That meant Lella scored half a point - the first and only points scored by a woman in F1. She also raced a NASCAR at Daytona, and won in sports cars. She died in 1992 of cancer, at only 51 years of age.

Why can't women drive? Well, they can, of course. They can drive every bit as well as men. Get karting, girls. Get karting.