Dr. Jennifer Costa is saving your life during the week and sliding a Peugeot 208 on a gravel stage on the weekends. Because…why wouldn’t she?
I don’t have a crystal ball but I know this: I will never win an FIA-sanctioned race. Actually, I am pretty sure I will never win any motor race at all.
Jennifer Costa, on the other hand, has won lots and lots and lots of races. So many in fact that, in 2008, she came second in the karting world championship, in the Biland category. Meaning she probably drives better than me. And that I hate her.
Joking aside, this racer – now 35 – won multiple titles back at her home country of Brazil before coming to Europe to… be a doctor. A racing doctor. Is there anything cooler than that? I don’t think so.
She is Dr. Jennifer Costa, whom you can find at any of the units of ULSAM (Unidades Locais Saúde Alto Minho) every day from 9 to 18 (actually doctor hours are never that simple, but you see what I mean), and a racing driver from the moment she takes off her hospital coat.
Like I said, Jennifer was born in Brazil. Her father had a car workshop, so cars were always there since the beginning. Some girls fed imaginary food to their Barbies; Jennifer fed real petrol to some Weber carburetors.
When she was five years-old her father got a go-kart from a customer as part of a payment. And it just goes to show how random our lives can be. Jennifer’s father spruced it up and started using it. You see where this is going. As soon as she could reach the pedals, she started using it too. And it was love at first slide.
Now, obviously, just because you have access to a go-kart doesn’t mean you have the skill to be a racing driver. I have always had access to pen and paper and I still cannot draw two lines together.
Jennifer was a natural and, at age eight, she won the regional championship. More titles followed in junior categories in the coming years. In the beginning of the century she was runner-up in the nationals in Brazil and in 2008 came the vice-world championship. However, there comes a time when all of us have to make choices. Racing costs a lot of money and is anything but certain. It became clear she was going to have to marry her racing passion with something else.
She chose Portugal for obvious reasons and is a proud graduate from UBI – Universidade da Beira Interior. Racing never disappeared from her life though and, with some less significant results along the way she came second in the Portugal Caterham Ladies Cup last year. And then came a different kind of racing desire: rallying.
After almost three decades on the circuit, Jennifer felt the calling of the gravel stages and is entering the Peugeot Rally Cup, a parallel competition to the Portuguese Rally Championship.
This is relevant because it shows how hard it is to go racing, even at an entrance level. The Peugeot Rally Cup is the stepway to the National Championship and the less expensive format in which you can be a rally driver in 2025 in Portugal – apart from some events at a regional level that are mostly run for fun.
To put it in context, the Peugeot Rally Cup comprises 5 rallies; drivers rent the cars from Peugeot, a kind of pay and go solution that makes it easier for anyone with a proper license to be able to go rallying. It still costs 75.000€ to 80.000€ and sponsorship is very hard to come by, even if Jennifer says that, maybe unlike our collective idea, “it’s easier for a woman to get sponsorship at this level, because we have a variety of possibilities that include all the men and car-related brands, as the public is mostly masculine, but also women-specific brands, something a man does not have”.
“The Peugeot Rally Cup” – she continues – “is really quite interesting because it’s very competitive. And I am loving the challenges brought up by the specifics of rallying, like having someone shouting pace notes in my ear or dealing with unexpected situations along the stages, something that never happens at a circuit. Each km is different and even the same km can be different from our first and second runs in the same event. The driver makes a lot of difference”.
Jennifer would love to do the championship on an R2 type car and fight for the overall top-ten but renting an R2 car for the whole season costs from 300.000€. If you want to have a shot at winning, add at least another 100.000€ to that number in preparation and upgrades.
For Jennifer the racing year begins with a trial at the Portimão Rally on the 10th and 11th of May, a regional event, to see where she is in terms of performance. I say let’s bring out the flags and the horns and cheer for her and all the others who do this out of pure passion. Besides, it’s not every day you can watch a vice-world champion drive by.
If you want to support the Jennifer Costa Racing Team you can find and contact her on Instagram. To know more about the Peugeot Rally Cup go to the national federation of motorsport website at fpak.pt.
Let’s not pretend it’s not fascinating to see a woman drive a car on the limit. It’s got nothing to do with gender-bias. It’s just something we don’t see every day – and all the more appealing because of it.
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