Emilija Gelazninkiene: “People sit at home and judge what you do, but they don’t understand what it takes to compete in motorsports”

Emilija Gelazninkiene is a rally raid driver from Elektrenai, Lithuania, who entered motorsport without a traditional racing background and built her career through persistence and hard work. She found her place in off-road and rally raid racing, where long distances, navigation, and endurance matter as much as outright speed. Over a short span of time, she began making her presence felt, steadily improving her performance and earning respect within a highly demanding discipline.

One of her standout achievements came at the Breslau Rally, often called the European Dakar, where she progressed from finishing the race to fighting at the front and eventually securing a podium finish. Her journey reached a historic moment when she became the first Lithuanian woman to compete as a driver at the Dakar Rally, completing one of the toughest events in motorsport. Alongside these results, Emilija continues to break barriers, using her experiences and wins to inspire more women to step into rally raid racing and believe that they belong there too.

“I never had the financial means to even think about stepping into motorsport,” Emilija told Females in Motorsport.

“In 2017, I met my husband, a former motorcycle racer. He took me to a Dakar rally, and that’s when we realised this was a dream we wanted to pursue together. Soon after, we began looking for sponsorship.

“He went on to compete in four Dakar Rallies in a row. Only after the fourth did I finally share my own dream of racing Dakar, and I asked him to be my co-driver in the Side-by-Side Vehicle category.”

When Emilija finally test-rode a buggy for the first time, she couldn’t hold back her tears. After years of watching races on TV and dreaming about this moment, actually getting behind the wheel felt like everything she had worked for had finally come true.

“I started training seriously with coaches, pilates, sports, cycling, just constant training, training, training,” she says.

“At the same time, I was trying to find a budget. The first year, it didn’t work out, but by the second year, I managed to secure funding. That’s when we had to open a training base in Dubai because I was starting completely from zero, and I only began this journey when I was 29.

Emilija eventually stepped into competitive rallying, and in 2024, she made history as the first female driver from Lithuania, and the wider Baltic region, to compete in a buggy.

“It was an amazing and positive experience, but it didn’t come without challenges,” she says.

“Being the first woman meant people were waiting for me to make a mistake. For example, in one prologue, another crew hit us and we flipped, it wasn’t our fault, but of course everyone said it was because I was the woman driving. I had only been racing for two years, and we faced so many obstacles along the way.”

Motorsport is not easy on the mind, it can either make you or break you, and it all comes down to how you handle negativity.

“I think one of the mistakes I made early on was reading comments on social media,” she says.

“People sit at home and judge what you do, but they don’t understand what it takes to drive a car or compete in motorsports. Over time, I learned to use those comments in a positive way, to show others that, yes, I can do this, and so can other women.

“I wanted to prove that you can be in motorsport and still be yourself, wearing makeup, fresh hair, lipstick, or not, it’s your choice”

At first, people doubted her. When she coached, some didn’t think she knew what she was doing. Over time, even those who had criticised her were the first to congratulate her after podiums and strong results. She learned to take negativity in stride, separate her emotions, and use it to her advantage. 

Confidence can waver, emotions run high, and challenges keep coming, but managing all of this is part of what makes motorsport so demanding and rewarding.