A ‘baptism of fire’ on the road of a rallying trailblazer

Nabila Tejpar has rallying in her blood but has still had to fight for her right to follow in her father and grandfather’s footsteps

Nabila Tejpar is competing in the European Rally Championship (Riccardo Oliveira)

Hanging upside down, as her Fiesta R2 1600 spiralled through the air at 100kph, Nabila Tejpar’s first thought was, “this isn’t that bad.”

It was 2016, the Essex native’s second year on the circuit, and Tejpar, a third-generation rally driver, was calmly evaluating her life choices as she looped above the Scottish course in the middle of her first accident.

Later, surveying the pricey damage, she would regret some of the moves she’d made in the car - a moment of hesitation, a lifted throttle - in the seconds before she was airborne. But the career path? Absolutely not. She’d fought hard for the privilege of crashing into a tree stump.