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Girl power at the Brickyard

A record tying four women will be lining up on the grid when the 97th edition of the Indianapolis 500 starts this Sunday.

The four are British duo Katherine Legge and Pippa Mann, Brazilian Ana Beatriz and Swiss racer Simona de Silvestro. The number of female drivers in the 33-car field matches the record set in 2010 and 2011.

For some of the ladies, qualifying was a close run thing. Legge posted the slowest qualifying speed after a four-lap qualifying average Sunday of 357.0816km/h but since nobody else beat her, she managed to make the main field. Incredibly, she only signed a deal on Saturday to make a run at an Indy start for the second year in a row.

Mexican driver Michel Jourdain was the only one who failed to make the field, never approaching practice speeds fast enough to threaten Legge's mark, he was unable to squeeze onto the final grid.

All four women come into the race having competing in a variety of other formats with mixed results. Legge competed in Formula Ford, Formula Renault and Formula Thress before graduating to the Toyota Atlantic Championship in America. She also represented Great Britain in A1 GP, drove in the Champ Car World Series and has three years of DTM experience under her belt.

Pippa Mann started her single-seater career in 2003 in Formula Renault. She moved on to the Formula Renault Eurocup championship before racing in Formula Renault 3.5 and the British Porsche Carrera Cup Championship. She then did two seasons of Indy Lights racing before qualifying for the Indy 500 in 2011.

Ana Beatriz started carting in 2000, then graduated to Formula Renault in Brazil. She also has two years of Indy Lights experience and won the 2008 rookie of the year award after ending the season with one win and finishing third overall in the championship. She was been racing in IndyCar since 2010 and this will be her fourth consecutive Indy 500 start.

At 24 years of age, Simona de Silvestro is the youngest of the four lady drivers. She will also be starting her fourth consecutive Indy 500 and has had a successful 2013 season having scored 86 points from the first four races of the year and currently sits in ninth place in the championship.

Defending champion Dario Franchitti of Scotland, who is of course married to Ashley Judd, will start in the middle of row six, which is the same row he started from last year.