18/08/2025
The first time she sat behind the wheel of a rally car in 1966, it wasn’t about glory. It was about proving something — perhaps to herself, perhaps to a world that didn’t quite expect women to belong in the heat of competition. The car was an NSU, small but scrappy, and she drove it as though every curve on the road was a dare. Two years she raced for the German brand, sharpening her skills and her instincts, building the kind of grit that only comes from long days in the cockpit and nights spent covered in engine grease.
By 1967, she was everywhere. Twenty-nine events in one year. Imagine that — almost every other weekend, a different starting line. The smell of fuel, the buzz of the crowd, the hum in her chest when the flag dropped. She paired up with Marie-Claude Beaumont for the 24 Hours of Spa, and somewhere in that blur of rain, headlights, and exhaustion, she earned her first title: Belgian Drivers’ Champion.
Then came 1968. A turning point. She still tore through roads in her NSU Prinz, even tried her hand at Formula Vee single-seaters, but the real shift came when Alfa Romeo Benelux signed her as a works driver. Thirty-seven events followed, both on asphalt and in rally stages. Time and again, she claimed her class in an Alfa Romeo GTV, the machine growling under her command. The pinnacle? A victory at the Houyet hillclimb, taking the overall ranking in the team’s Alfa Romeo GTA SA — a triumph shared with the legendary Team Lucien Bianchi.
She was relentless. Eleven times she tackled the 24 Hours of Spa, her last circuit race in July 1980. Four times she faced Le Mans, that brutal test of endurance and nerve. In 1974, she and her partners — Marie Laurent from France and Yvette Fontaine from Belgium — steered their Chevron to victory in the 2-liter class. In 1976, she joined forces with heavyweights Henri Pescarolo and Jean-Pierre Beltoise in the Inaltéra team, lining up with Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Jean Rondeau.
The following year brought a pairing straight out of motorsport history books: alongside Lella Lombardi, the only woman ever to score a Formula One point, she made Le Mans history. Eleventh overall — still the highest finish for an all-female crew. But the number tells only part of the story. At over 320 km/h on the Mulsanne Straight, an electrical failure spun the car into chaos. Most would have been done for. She wasn’t. In the dark hours of the night, she worked alone to bring the Inaltéra back to life. Two hours lost, yes, but the race went on. And so did she.
Her appetite for challenge had no borders. In 1979, 1980, and 1982, she took on the Paris–Dakar Rally — the first woman ever to do so. Across deserts and dunes, she carved her way into a history few dared to write.
Even NASCAR came calling in 1977, inviting her and Lombardi to drive the Firecracker 400 at Daytona. She returned to that same oval for the 24 Hours of Daytona, twice — once in an Inaltéra, once in a BMW M3.
And now? In 2024, at 80 years old, Christine Beckers still isn’t done. On July 21, at Circuit Zolder, she plans to slip into the cockpit of a 1980s-era Arrows A8 Formula One car and chase down another record — the oldest person ever to drive one.
Eighty years old, and the road still calls her name. Some people retire. Christine? She just changes gears.
