Caitlin Wood is an Australian driver who races in Europe. In recent years, this has been in sportscars, although she started in single-seaters.
She began her senior motorsport career in 2013, supported by the Women’s Australian Motorsport federation as one of their most promising young drivers, following a successful karting career. Her brother had raced previously and she helped him and their father rebuilt his Spirit Formula Ford. She did part-seasons in the Australian and Victorian Formula Ford championships, earning two fourteenth places in the Australian series. More races in the Victorian championship gave her more experience.
In late 2013, she was selected as Australia’s entry for the FIA Women in Motorsport Scirocco-R shootout, in an attempt to win a VW Scirocco prize drive in Europe. She did not win and returned to single-seaters in Australia.
Another season in the Australian Formula Ford championship followed in 2014. It was a hard year for her, but she managed to get into the top ten three times towards the end of the season. She was 21st overall. As well as her national series, she got some extra seat time in the New South Wales state championship, where she fared better, finishing sixth overall after five races.
She put together a deal late in the season to run in the 2015 Australian Formula 4 championship, the first female driver to do so. She was thirteenth in the championship after just under half of the season, with a best finish of sixth at Sandown.
In 2016, she intended to race in F4 for the full season but ended up in Europe, racing a KTM X-Bow in the GT4 European Series. This followed an invitation by former Formula 1 driver Tomas Enge to join a Young Stars programme run by Reiter Engineering.
She was a solid top-ten finisher in the Pro class, partnered with male drivers including Marko Helistekangas. Her best overall finish was seventh at Pau, and she was seventeenth in the main championship. However, she won the Young Stars class.
She stayed with the Reiter team in 2017 and drove both the X-Bow and their Lamborghini Gallardo. The X-Bow came out for the Dubai 24 Hours, where Caitlin was part of a four-woman Reiter team with fellow Young Stars drivers Anna Rathe, Marylin Niederhauser and Naomi Schiff. They finished the race in 72nd place.
For most of the year she drove the Gallardo in the Blancpain Endurance Series, as a prize for her Young Stars win. She was tenth in the Sprint Cup Silver Cup, having been entered in different classes over the year with Marko Helistekangas.
She missed some of the 2018 season due to injury but managed the early and late part of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo, racing in Europe. At first, she drove for Mtech in the Pro-Am class, before doing the Silverstone rounds in the Am class with The Energy Check. She returned to Pro-Am for the closing races at the Nurburgring, picking up her best finish of sixth.
She also did her first Bathurst 12 Hours in the X-Bow, although she did not finish. Sadly, she did not finish the race in 2019 either.
The 2019 summer season was spent as a W Series driver in Europe, having gone through several rounds of selection alongside her former Reiter team-mates, Naomi Schiff and Marylin Niederhauser. Naomi was also selected.
Her best finish by far was fifth at Assen and she was thirteenth in the championship. She did not race in W Series in 2020 as it was cancelled, but she returned as a reserve driver in 2021. Despite her reserve status, she did four of the eight races, earning one fifth place at Spa. She also drove the Tatuus F3 car up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
After being released by W Series, she remained in Europe and joined up with the Adrenalin Motorsport Alzer team for the NLS. Their car is a BMW 330i.
(Image copyright Caitlin Wood)