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BARCELONA — Formula One championship leader Valtteri Bottas beat Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to pole position by a massive margin at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday with rivals Ferrari trailing behind.

The pole was a third in a row for the re-energised and smiling Finn, who leads Hamilton by a single point after four of the 21 races, and he did it in a track record time of one minute 15.406 seconds.

That was a hefty 0.634 quicker than Hamilton’s best effort, dashing the five-times world champion’s hopes of record-extending 85th career pole.

Sebastian Vettel qualified in third place, in 1:16.272, with Red Bull’s 2016 Spanish Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen fourth and sandwiched between the Ferraris, with Charles Leclerc fifth.

“I really enjoyed that, enjoyed the adrenaline rush you get from those laps so I’m really pleased,” said Bottas, who had also been fastest in Friday practice and looks a different driver to last year when he failed to win anything.

“The season has started well, the way I hoped for and I feel better and better in the car so I look forward to tomorrow,” added the Finn, who will be chasing his third win of the season on Sunday.

Mercedes have dominated qualifying in Barcelona for the past seven years, with Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado the last driver from any other team to start from the top slot when he did it with Williams in 2012.

Maldonado’s pole was only because Hamilton, then with McLaren, was excluded and sent to the back of the grid for a fuel irregularity.

Hamilton said his laps in the final phase of qualifying could have been better, with a scrappy first effort kicking up gravel, but the upgrades brought by Mercedes to the start of the traditional European part of the campaign were working well.

The Briton, on pole in Spain for the past three years and four times in total as well as winning for Mercedes in 2018, 2017 and 2014, said Bottas had done a better job.

“Valtteri did a fantastic job, he’s been quick all weekend,” said Hamilton. “On my side, I just didn’t put the lap together... ultimately, it just wasn’t a good enough job. 

“It’s great for the team to have this one-two so we’ll try and convert that into a one-two [on Sunday] and if I can reverse it I’ll be happy.”

Mercedes have won the first four races one-two, a record start for any team, despite Ferrari setting the pace in pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

“I think we got everything out of the car in the first run,” said Vettel. “In the second run I had to try something different and it didn’t work. 

“The car doesn’t feel bad but obviously we are not quick enough. In terms of balance we got it more or less right,” added the German, who said Ferrari were still down on grip through the slower corners.

Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly qualified sixth with the Haas pair of Romain Grosjean, yet to score a point this year, and Kevin Magnussen seventh and eighth on the grid.

Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat qualified ninth with Renault’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who reversed into him at the previous race in Azerbaijan, 10th fastest.

Ricciardo has a three-place grid penalty for that embarrassing error in Baku, meaning that McLaren’s teenage rookie Lando Norris will take the 10th place instead.

Carlos Sainz, the only Spanish driver in the race now that Fernando Alonso has left Formula One, qualified 13th for McLaren but will also move up a place.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg failed to get through the first phase after running off the track and breaking his car’s front wing.

“We damaged a new spec front wing so had to change to old spec,” he said after pitting and returning to the track.

AMMAN — The Jordan Professional Football League ended on the weekend concluding the 2018/19 season competition, which remained undecided until the final two weeks of the country’s leading football event.

Faisali took home their 34th title, one point ahead of Jazira, who had led throughout the competition and settled for second after beating Faisali 2-0.

Titleholders Wihdat settled for third after holding Ramtha 2-2 as the latter finished 8th. Shabab Urdun finished fourth after they were held 1-1 by Aqaba who finished 6th. Salt finished 5th after they beat Hussein 3-2. Sarih finished 7th after they beat That Ras 2-1, as the latter dropped to the First Division. Ahli scored a vital 2-1 win over Baqaa to hold on to their spot in the league as Baqaa were relegated after 18 consecutive seasons in the elite group.

Looking back at the see-saw season, Ramtha, Aqaba, Hussein were in the relegation zone but maintained their spot in the elite group as That Ras, a previous Asian Football Confederation Cup participant and 2012 Jordan Cup champ were the first to drop. Ahli, who were relegated last decade, but came back to win the Jordan Cup in 2015 and played in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also seemed poised to drop but their final win secured their spot.

The season kicked off with league champs Wihdat beating Jordan Cup champs Jazira in the 36th Jordan Super Cup. The Jordan Cup quarters are set for May 14.

Regionally, Wihdat were knocked out of the 2018/19 AFC Champions League preliminary round.  In the AFC Cup, the second-tier Asian club competition, Jazira and Wihdat are poised to advance as Wihdat beat Lebanon’s Nijmeh 2-0 to take their Group A lead, while Jazira moved to the next round after they trounced Bahrain’s Najma 3-0 in stage 5 of the AFC Cup.

Last season, Wihdat won the league for a record 16th time. Jazira lost two competition finals conceding the 35th Jordan Super Cup to Faisali and the Jordan Football Association Shield final to Wihdat. Jazira finished runner-up in the league but made club history by winning the 38th Jordan Cup final after they last won the Jordan Cup in 1984. 

Since the league kicked off in 1944, Faisali are record 34-time winners, while Wihdat were crowned champs 16 times since they joined in 1980.

AMSTERDAM — Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino was overcome by emotion after the extraordinary Champions League semifinal victory over Ajax Amsterdam on Wednesday and who could blame him?

Few managers have had to deal with what Pochettino has this season — from being the only European club to make no signings in consecutive transfer windows to playing home games at Wembley because of delays in the completion of the club’s new stadium.

On top of that, many of Tottenham’s squad were involved deep into the World Cup finals with England, Belgium and France and it showed in recent weeks when the losses started piling up, with players running on fumes.

Tottenham arrived in Amsterdam on the back of three successive defeats and with top striker Harry Kane watching from the stands as he recovers from an ankle injury sustained in the first leg of Tottenham’s quarter-final win over Manchester City.

At halftime on Wednesday they looked down and out with Ajax, already 1-0 up after the first leg, leading 2-0 thanks to goals by Matthijs de Ligt and Hakim Ziyech.

But Tottenham, once mocked by rival fans for being soft-centred, showed immense spirit and forced their way back into their first European Cup semifinal for 57 years.

Lucas Moura, who would not even have been playing had Kane been fit, wrote himself into Tottenham folklore with a 35-minute hat-trick to send the away fans into delirium and Pochettino into floods of tears.

Tottenham’s Champions League campaign had looked all but over after they picked up one point from their first three group games.

They needed late winners in consecutive games against PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan and a draw in Barcelona, earned with Moura’s goal, to get into the knockout phase.

Now, after knocking out Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Ajax, they can look forward to taking on Liverpool on June 1 in their first final in European club football’s top competition.

‘Close to a miracle’

Pochettino said on the eve of the Ajax second leg that it would be a miracle if Tottenham won the Champions League, and that he might decide to do something else if they pulled it off.

Tottenham fans will hope he was only joking, but if Spurs do upset the odds again in Madrid and Pochettino does depart, he would do so ranked up alongside Bill Nicolson on the club’s list of all-time managerial greats.

“I think it’s one of the most important nights in my life,” Pochettino, who joined Tottenham in 2014 and is on the verge of sealing a fourth successive top-four finish, told reporters.

“I think [the players] are super heroes now. To get the club to the final of the Champions League I think is very close to a miracle. No one believed in us from the start of the season.”

With fewer resources than the rest of England’s top six, not to mention the likes of European heavyweights like Barcelona and Real Madrid, Pochettino has had to extract every last drop of value from his squad.

Moura, the last signing Tottenham made in January last year, has often been a bit-part player but when called upon has been a vital option for Pochettino. 

Likewise experienced Spanish striker Fernando Llorente, whose introduction at halftime on Wednesday helped muscle Tottenham back into contention.

Moussa Sissoko, whose energy drove Tottenham forward in the second half, is another player who has thrived under Pochettino after initially being written off.

Liverpool’s stunning 4-0 Champions League demolition of Barcelona naturally dominated the front and back pages of British newspapers on Wednesday with most going on a similar theme to the Daily Mail’s splash: “Miracle of Anfield”.

“An Anfield miracle transcribed from the pages of pure fantasy,” read the headline of the match report in The Independent, while The Guardian led with “Out of this world”.

The Merseyside club’s sensational victory over what some pundits described as one of the best sides of the modern era allowed them to overturn a 3-0 deficit from the first leg of their semi-final.

There were some suggestions that Liverpool had topped the “Miracle of Istanbul”, when the club similarly overturned a three-goal deficit to beat AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final to win their fifth European title.

European fixtures at Anfield have had a special atmosphere going back a lot further than that and some suggested the noise generated by a packed house combined with Juergen Klopp’s aggressive side had unsettled the Spanish champions.

“This is Liverpool’s gift: To rip up what you thought you knew about football and footballers, to take you — mentally and physically — to a place you don’t know and never wanted to go,” Jonathan Liew wrote in The Independent.

There was plenty of praise for the spirit and self belief that Klopp has fostered in his team, the German even forgiven for using an expletive when praising his players after the match.

“Juergen Klopp makes Liverpool believe they can do the impossible,” wrote Matt Dickinson in The Times. “No one minded when Juergen Klopp dropped the f-bomb live on television.

“After this, he could have stripped off and run around Anfield with his pants down and it would all have seemed part of his manic Germanic charm. With that grin and this football, he can get away with anything.”

There was plenty of praise as well for Trent Alexander-Arnold’s quick-thinking from a corner that caught the Barcelona defence napping and set up the decisive fourth goal for stand-in striker Divock Origi.

“With 79 minutes gone, the most celebrated team of the modern age had been reduced to bunch of mooching, stumbling yellow-shirted spectators,” Barney Ronay wrote in The Guardian.

“A Champions League season that had seemed to be zeroing in on another coronation for Lionel Messi had been wrenched, gleefully, the other way. It will instead be Liverpool in Madrid on the first day of June for another shot at the ultimate.”

The website of Spanish sports daily AS led with a quote from Argentine forward Messi in their headline “It was a horror movie,” while rival publication Marca’s edition splashed “Barcelona fail epically at Anfield.”

After Klopp and his players had stood, some in tears, in front of The Kop to celebrate the win with a rendition of the club anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, it was left to The Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel to point out that the job was not yet done.

“One had the feeling this was the moment he had been working towards since the day he set foot on Merseyside,” he wrote of Klopp.

“This spirit. This togetherness. This performance. This passion, this emotion: It was all here, every last drop of what he wanted to achieve.

“And yet, there is still such a long way to go.”

AMMAN — While the final week of the Jordan Professional Football League will see Faisali being crowned champions, the league’s 22nd week will see another battle at the other end of standings.

Faisali play Jazira, who have secured the runner-up spot, while titleholders Wihdat who played Ramtha late Wednesday, have settled for third.

However, it is the Ahli against Baqaa match on Thursday evening which is decisive. Ahli need to win to keep their spot in the league while Baqa’a just need a draw. That Ras have already dropped to the First Division.

During the past week, Faisali beat Baqaa 1-0, Jazira scored a big 4-0 win over Shabab Urdun, who took fourth spot, Ramtha beat 5th placed Salt 3-2, Wihdat beat That Ras 4-0, Ahli defeated Hussein 2-1, while Sarih moved up to seventh after they held Aqaba 0-0.

After a tough season, Ramtha and Aqaba maintained their spot in the elite group, but That Ras, a previous Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup participant and Jordan Cup champ in 2012, were the first to drop. Ahli, who were relegated last decade, but came back in impressive form and won the Jordan Cup in 2015 and played in the AFC, also seem poised to drop unless they win their last match.

The 2018/19 football season kicked off with league champs Wihdat beating Jordan Cup champs Jazira in the 36th Jordan Super Cup. The Jordan Cup quarters are set for next week.

Regionally, Wihdat were knocked out of the 2018/19 AFC Champions League preliminary round.  In the AFC Cup, the second-tier Asian club competition, Jazira and Wihdat are impressive with two more round to go. 

Wihdat beat Lebanon’s Nijmeh 2-0 to take their Group A lead while Jazira moved to the next round after they trounced Bahrain’s Najma 3-0 in stage 5 of the AFC Cup.

Last season, Wihdat won the league.  Faisali  won the 35th Jordan Super Cup and Wihdat won the Jordan Football Association Shield. Jazira finished runner-up in the league, but won the 38th Jordan Cup after they last won the Jordan Cup in 1984. 

Since the league kicked off in 1944, Faisali are record 34-time winners, while Wihdat were crowned champs 16 times since they joined in 1980.

LONDON — Mauricio Pochettino has challenged Tottenham to seize their unexpected chance to make history as they try to overturn a 1-0 deficit against Ajax in the Champions League semifinal second leg on Wednesday.

Pochettino is convinced Tottenham can still reach the club’s maiden Champions League final despite losing the first leg in north London last week.

Many pundits and fans claim Tottenham have blown their opportunity after Donny van de Beek’s strike gave Ajax a priceless lead to defend in Amsterdam.

Tottenham go into their biggest game for decades on a low note after losing 1-0 at Bournemouth on Saturday, a defeat that stopped them wrapping up a place in next season’s Champions League via a top-four finish in the Premier League.

It was a third successive loss in all competitions for Tottenham, who finished with nine men after red cards for Son Heung-min and Juan Foyth.

Fortunately for Tottenham, they are still all but certain to finish at least fourth after Arsenal and Manchester United were both held to draws on Sunday.

Tottenham are three points clear of fifth-placed Arsenal heading into their last league game of the season against Everton on Sunday and a draw will be enough to ensure their return to Europe’s elite club competition.

But before that Tottenham, trying to reach their first European final since the 1984 UEFA Cup, have to focus on the challenge presented by Ajax’s vibrant young side.

Having already eliminated Real Madrid and Juventus this season, Ajax showed their vast potential against Tottenham in the first leg and should have been further ahead after Van de Beek’s opener.

Tottenham improved slightly in the second half, but largely looked toothless without the suspended Son and injured top scorer Harry Kane.

Crucially, Pochettino will have Son back from his ban for the second leg and the South Korea forward should give his team a far more dynamic look.

‘Massive week’

Pochettino remained upbeat despite the frustration of losing to Nathan Ake’s last-minute goal at Bournemouth, and the Tottenham manager hopes his confident attitude transfers to his players against Ajax.

“We have ahead two ‘finals’ against Ajax and Everton and it’s in our hands to be in a good position at the end of the season,” Pochettino said.

Although Tottenham will know they have missed a golden opportunity to reach the final if they do not succeed in the second leg, Pochettino is adamant his players have done more than enough already to make him proud of their efforts this term.

Hamstrung by playing most of their home games at Wembley before finally moving to their new stadium and without a signing for the last two transfer windows due to the cost of that £1 billion arena, Pochettino’s work this season deserves praise.

Pochettino is not satisfied with merely competing with the big guns and has already called on Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy to give him the funds required to turn them from contenders to champions.

But, while the Argentine is yet to win a major trophy in his managerial career, he has steered Tottenham to the brink of major success with his deft handling of a tricky situation.

“No-one believed we’d be in this position in the last week of the competition,” Pochettino said.

“We are in a position where it depends on us to be in the [Champions League] final or not and then it depends on us to finish in the top four.

“It’s a massive week and that’s why we need to move on, try to recover as soon as possible and be ready again but whatever happens I am going to feel proud.”

Former World No. 1 Roger Federer said he was glad he made the decision to return to clay courts, as he prepares for the Madrid Open this week, three years after his last match on the surface.

Federer had skipped the clay court season the past two years since last competing in Rome in May 2016, but confirmed his participation for the tournament in Madrid earlier this year.

“I’m happy that the decision I took last December, when I started feeling like I definitely want to play on the clay, was the right one,” Federer, 37, told reporters.

“I haven’t looked back yet during the clay court build-up, thinking, ‘Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have.’ I’m happy I’m here, I’m happy I am on the surface.

“It takes some time getting used to how to construct the points a little bit more because there is more baseline [play], a possibility to play with more angles and height. It’s been interesting and fun, but not so challenging.”

Federer, who recently won his 101st singles title in Miami, is the tournament’s fourth seed behind World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal and Alexander Zverev.

However, the 20-times Grand Slam singles champion said he was not trying to burden himself with expectations when he steps out on court at the Caja Magica.

“It will be interesting to see how this tournament goes,” Federer added. “I do not have high expectations in some ways.

“But at the same time I also know that things are possible. Madrid always plays fast with the altitude here. I’m intrigued to find out.”

Having received a bye to the second round, Federer will play the winner of the match between France’s Richard Gasquet and Spanish teenager Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who reached the semifinal of the Estoril Open last week.

Meanwhile, Greek youngster Stefanos Tsitsipas’ French Open preparations gathered momentum as he claimed his first claycourt title with a 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Pablo Cuevas at the Estoril Open on Sunday.

Top seed Tsitsipas made the most of his Uruguayan opponent’s struggles on the serve to clinch the opening set and grabbed an early break to serve at 4-3 in the second.

But the Australian Open semifinalist suffered a lapse in concentration and was broken for the first time in the contest during a stretch of nine consecutive points won by Cuevas.

Tsitsipas regained his composure to save a set point in the 10th game before sealing the victory in the tiebreak for his third career title.

“I was very calm. I stayed aggressive, stayed motivated, didn’t think too much,” the 20-year-old said. 

“He didn’t get into my head after he broke me back in the second set. That was kind of frustrating, but I kept fighting, kept believing that I can still win it in two sets.”

Tsitsipas now heads to back-to-back ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in Madrid and Rome before he bids for a maiden Grand Slam crown at Roland Garros, where he was knocked out by Dominic Thiem in the second round last year.

“I’ve been building my game. It hasn’t been an easy transition from hard to clay this year, so I’ve been trying to play as many matches as I can before the big events start,” Tsitsipas added.

Also, Chilean Cristian Garin continued his remarkable breakthrough season as he defeated Matteo Berrettini 6-1 3-6, 7-6(1) in the Munich Open final on Sunday, clinching his second ATP title.

It was Garin’s 19th clay court match-win of the season and his second trophy of the year after lifting the Houston title last month.

AMMAN — Jordan’s young karate stars have delivered for the second week running after winning eight medals at the Karate Youth League in Limassol, Cyprus, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service. 

The event attracted some of the best up and coming fighters with over 1,500 entered from 58 countries, but Jordan returned home with two gold, two silver and four bronze medals.

Abdullah Hammad (-61kg) and Afif Ghaith (-55 kg) won the gold medals, while Hasan Masarwa (-68 kg) and Mohammed Jaafari (-70 kg) won silvers. Yazan AlWahar (-76 kg), Omar Shakra (-55 kg), Zaki Abu Kaoud (+70 kg) and Ibrahim shamon (-70 kg) took the bronze medals.

The achievement came just a few days after the national U-21, youth and junior teams won 13 medals (two gold, five silver and six bronze) at the Asian Championships held in Malaysia. 

Substitute Divock Origi’s 86th minute header earned Liverpool a 3-2 win at Newcastle United on Saturday to send them two points above Manchester City and keep their Premier League title bid alive.

The race to secure the final two Champions League qualification places looks likely to go to the final weekend after Tottenham Hotspur again slipped up, losing to a last-minute goal at Bournemouth while having two men sent off.

Cardiff City’s 3-2 defeat at home to Crystal Palace ensured they were relegated along with Huddersfield Town and Fulham, who lost 1-0 at Wolverhampton Wanderers, while West Ham United brushed aside Southampton 3-0.

Liverpool have 94 points and Manchester City 92, but Pep Guardiola’s City have two games remaining, including Monday’s home match with Leicester City.

Liverpool have just their final day home game with Wolves remaining but the result means the race will go down to the wire.

Virgil Van Dijk headed Liverpool in front in the 13th minute, but seven minutes later Newcastle drew level through Christian Atsu.

Liverpool restored their lead in the 28th minute when Daniel Sturridge, starting in place of the injured Roberto Firmino, back-heeled the ball from the corner to Trent Alexander-Arnold and the full-back’s cross was expertly turned in by Mohamed Salah.

Managed by former Liverpool boss Rafe Benitez, 14th placed Newcastle drew level nine minutes after the break when the visitors failed to clear a corner and Salomon Rondon’s brilliant fierce left foot drive beat the helpless Alisson Becker.

Then, with their talismanic forward Salah carried off on a stretcher with a head injury and facing a massive blow to their title hopes, Origi rose at the near post to head in a Xherdan Shaqiri free-kick and give Juergen Klopp’s side the victory.

A win for Spurs at the Vitality Stadium would have secured a top-four slot ahead of next week’s Champions League semifinal second leg against Ajax Amsterdam.

But, after losing at home to West Ham United last week and then going down to the Dutch side in midweek, Mauricio Pochettino’s side failed to fire again and went down 1-0 after Nathan Ake struck in injury time. 

Son Heung-min was first to be sent off for pushing Jefferson Lerma just before halftime with Juan Foyth shown a straight red card for a studs-up tackle on Jack Simpson two minutes after coming on at the interval.

Spurs stay third on 70 points, four points clear of fifth-placed Arsenal, who have two games remaining. But Pochettino’s side know victory in their final game against Everton will see them qualify, with Chelsea and Manchester United also capable of securing a top-four slot.

“It is very painful to play with two players less than the opponent,” Pochettino said.

“We need to move on. We cannot change the decisions. We have ahead two finals against Ajax and Everton. It is in our hands. If it does not happen we will be proud because nobody expected Tottenham to be in the position they are today.

“We are fighting [five] teams, it is impossible for all six to get the top four, whatever happens I will feel proud and whatever happens in the [Champions League] semifinal I will be proud.”

Spurs also had to contest with a fine Premier League debut from 19-year-old goalkeeper Mark Travers, who was in inspired form for the hosts with a string of fine saves. 

Cardiff never seriously looked like securing the win they needed to stand any chance of staying up, with Wilfried Zaha, Michy Batshuayi and Andros Townsend scoring the goals for Palace, who won for the fifth time in six away league games.

The result confirmed Cardiff’s relegation after one season for the second time in five years. It was also manager Neil Warnock’s third top-flight relegation after also going down with Notts County in 1992 and Sheffield United in 2007. 

At Molineux, Leander Dendoncker’s 75th-minute volley against Fulham moved Wolves a step closer to possible European football next season. 

The Midlanders will be guaranteed to finish seventh in their first season after promotion if Leicester fail to beat Manchester City on Monday. Wolves would then need City to beat Watford in the FA Cup final to secure a place in Europe for the first time in 39 years.

The one bright spot for Fulham was Harvey Elliott, who became Premier League’s youngest ever player at the age of 16 years and 30 days when he came on after 88 minutes.

Marko Arnautovic scored twice for West Ham — his first goals for four months — as the home side completed a routine 3-0 win over Southampton. Ryan Fredericks rounded off the scoring with his first-ever Premier League strike.

On the final Sunday — May 12 — Liverpool are at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers and City take on Brighton on the south coast.

“Today was a battle of will but it was a victory of passion, heart and absolute desire — absolutely brilliant,” said Klopp.

“We could talk about football tonight, we could talk purely about showing real heart, showing real passion and showing real desire.”

It was all the more impressive given that on Wednesday Liverpool had expending so much energy at the Camp Nou only to end up with a bitter 3-0 defeat.

There was no sign of any hangover from that experience however. 

“It was just brilliant,” said Klopp.

“Newcastle showed it as well, unbelievable — they gave us a proper game. I think in our situation with all the circumstances around, some people probably expected us to show a bit of nerves and the boys didn’t. It was just a difficult game for difficult reasons,” said Klopp.

Having been pushed all the way by former manager Rafa Benitez’s side, Liverpool must now hope that another of their ex-bosses, Brendan Rodgers, can inspire his Leicester side to an upset against City at the Etihad on Monday.

But Klopp says he is a resigned to whatever fate will throw his team’s way.

“I accepted long ago that we do everything, absolutely everything, the boys throw whatever they have on the pitch, so that means whether we are champion or not, it is destiny,” he said. 

“We do everything and we cannot do more — can you get more than 94 points? Can you get more in all the other stuff? Not really.

“Wow, what a race”

HOCKENHEIM, Germany — Desiré Wilson sees no physical or mental reason why a woman cannot compete in Formula One, whatever the men might say, and she should know. 

The only woman to win a Formula One race, a non-championship round of a long-defunct British series at Brands Hatch in 1980, the 65-year-old South African says those who raise such obstacles are talking rubbish. 

“I used to drive for three hours in world endurance championship races, in monstrous Porsche 956s, and I was capable of doing it,” she told Reuters at the first race of the all-female W Series. 

Wilson’s first IndyCar race in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1983, was 500km on a street course with eight pitstops for fuel and no paddle shifts. 

“The cars were brutal. I finished 10th in that race and I think seven drivers pulled in and collapsed [because of the heat],” she said. 

“Drivers were just passing out and there I was, a 120 pound driver but it was all in the mental strength. 

“My opinion is that women are actually stronger mentally than men are. I think we can push ourselves much further than men can,” added Wilson. 

“It’s the individual person, what you are made up of, what you want in life, how hard do you want to fight for it and how serious and focused you are.” 

W Series, with 18 women racing identical Formula Three cars in a six-round championship, aims to raise the profile of female racers and help them take on the men further up the single-seater ladder. 

One of the ultimate aims is to see a woman compete in Formula One again for the first time since Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976, and Wilson is highly supportive of the concept. 

“I think it’s a superb idea. Because ultimately you’re giving these women an opportunity to take part. A lot of them wouldn’t be racing if it wasn’t for this series,” she said. 

“For men who say ‘why should it be an all-woman series?’, they haven’t had to really go through what women really have had to go through in motorsports. So they have no idea.

 “I think this series will showcase women more than it ever has before and hopefully that will be a combination of finding some more sponsorship. I’d love to see somebody there [in Formula One] in the next few years.”

You can count on the fingers of one hand how many women have entered a world championship Formula One race, and Wilson is one of those five. 

While the South African failed to qualify her Williams for the 1980 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, as did future world champion Keke Rosberg, she says the timing sheets told only part of the story. 

She recalled the words of French driver Jacques Laffite, unapologetic after forcing her off the track on the way to a front-row slot for Ligier, who said: “No [expletive] woman should be in Grands Prix.” 

When Wilson won the Evening News Trophy at Brands Hatch, a circuit that now has a stand named after her, she beat four F1 drivers including Chile’s Eliseo Salazar and Italian motorcycling great Giacomo Agostini. 

Wilson also drove a Tyrrell in the 1981 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, a race scheduled originally as the first round of the season but then deemed non-championship due to F1 politics. That designation still rankles. 

 “There’s no doubt that chauvinism and sexism was difficult in my era but we were seen a little bit more as novelty drivers,” she said. 

“Every few years a woman was at least able to attempt to get into Formula One. But you still had to qualify and get the super licence to be able to race.” 

Gender was always an issue. 

“I had a couple of sponsors who turned around and said ‘You’re in my car because I want you to go and beat those boys’,” she said.

“Everybody was your friend while you weren’t competitive,” she added. 

“But the minute you started winning it was amazing how fewer male friends you had. They just disappeared.”