Saudi Arabia’s first female race car motorist, Reema Juffali, has been named as the ambassador for the country’s first-ever Grand Prix in Jeddah.
Juffail has been appointed as a race ambassador for the inaugural event of the first edition of the Saudi Grand Prix under the Formula 1 World Championship, between December 3 and 5.
“It is an incredible honour for me to be named as an ambassador for Saudi Motorsport for the first-ever Formula 1 race weekend in Saudi Arabia,” Juffali told Reuters.
“Growing up in Jeddah, I walked the very same streets which will form the circuit that the world’s best drivers will now race on. It’s hard to overstate what a momentous occasion this is for the city,” added the 29-year old, who has also been a part of the British Formula 3 Championship, 2021.
Juffali will also become one of the first people to drive the track in a test lap, in the iconic Williams FW07 historic Formula 1 race car, alongside other professional racers in the Saudi Supercar Club.
Seema Juffali, an inspiration
Juffali, made her motoring debut just months after the world’s only decades-old ban on female motorists ended, in June 2018.
She celebrated the moment with her participation as a “VIP” guest driver, in the Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY, an all-electric race in Diriyah, close to the capital Riyadh in 2019.
Juffali, who hails from the western city of Jeddah and was educated in the United States and became the first Saudi woman to race on home soil.
The inspirational woman who made one of her first appearances in competitive racing at the F4 British Championship at Brands Hatch in April 2019, has only a few years of professional racing experience under her belt. But she has had a passion for fast cars since her teenage years and grew up watching Formula One.
She passed her driving test after she moved to the United States to study, and is now one of the only handful of Saudi women to have obtained a “racing license” in her home country, a mandatory requirement to race professionally.