EXCLUSIVE: Why Molly Taylor is paving the way for a generation of girls in motorsport

Molly Taylor doesn't really like being called a trailblazer, or to be described as someone "breaking down barriers".

She just drives rally cars and carves through the bush at terrifying speeds.

And she's pretty good at it. In 2016 she became the youngest ever winner of the Australian Rally Championship – and also the first and to-date only female champion.

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Then in 2021, she won the inaugural Extreme E World Championship with Johan Kristoffersson.

While she might not like the term "trailblazer", she's OK with being a role model, or even an inspiration to young girls. She became very aware she was both of those things early in her career.

"I don't put myself in any like high stature at all – quite the opposite," she told Wide World of Sports ahead of this weekend's Race of Champions in Sydney.

"I think it's one of those things if the visibility can help encourage more young girls (into motorsport), great.

"But for me personally, I just love the sport and it's great to be able to give back, but at the end of the day, we just want to just go drive and compete."

Taylor is an example of what can come from exposure to motorsport. She comes from racing pedigree. Her mum Coral Taylor is a five-time Australian Rally Champion co-driver, and her dad was a former driver who ran a rally school.

She wasn't interested in racing herself until her mid-teens. She was interested in horsepower, sure, but it was only one and had four legs.

But that changed when her dad invited her to come and spend a weekend at the rally school to learn car control before she got her Ls.

"I liked one horsepower and then I discovered you could have more, which is obviously way better," she said.

"I thought (motorsport) was cool but it didn't really click for me. It wasn't until I was getting my license for the road, I went out to rally school to learn some driver training, as everyone should do before they get their licence, and then I was like, 'Ohh, this is what it's like. OK, let's do this'."

And so she did. She sold the horse and the float, and bought herself a rally car.

Pretty quickly, something became obvious. When in service parks – basically the pits – between stages, she often had fans standing around her car. Especially young girls.

In fact, there were often more young girls hanging around her car than there were boys around her rivals. They wanted photos, a chat, an autograph. Taylor was only too happy to oblige.

That Taylor's mum was a key motorsport figure meant she never felt as if she had those societal barriers to overcome. Motorsport to her just was – perhaps as it was for her male rivals.

But the attention of those girls in the service parks quickly drove it home that her upbringing and exposure to motorsport was far from the norm.

"Looking back, I probably didn't even realize that was happening," Taylor said.

"Now, I feel strongly about creating visibility ... for young girls who maybe don't grow up in a motorsport family so they can see what is possible, and hopefully that encourages a few more to give it a go.

"It's pretty cool when you see a young girl come up to you. It makes you wonder if they would have gone up to another male driver – and maybe they would have, who knows? But that was when it really hit home the importance of visibility, and just how lucky I was to take that all for granted."

Taylor is one of several leading women in Australian motorsport. Jessica Dane was a part team owner of Triple Eight racing before she moved to the USA. She now works for General Motors managing it's Corvette Racing program.

In Supercars, Romy Mayer is lead engineer on James Golding's car for PremiAir Racing. Riana Crehan is also a respected pit lane reporter. Taylor herself has dabbled in media, fronting Stan Sport's coverage of the Speed Series.

All have been heavily involved in the FIA's Girls on Track program, which promotes career opportunities in motorsport as a whole to young girls.

Anecdotally, the success of the program has lead to a significant increase in the numbers of girls in Australian motorsport at grassroots level, particularly karting.

Taylor said while the program obviously has girls coming through wanting to be drivers, it also promotes other career paths in the industry.

"I would say we get more people that are interested in all the other areas," she said.

"Whether that's engineering, team management, marketing – there's more opportunities than driving. You can have a career in motorsport, whatever that means, which is pretty cool."