Aishwarya Pissay Becomes First Woman From Asia To Win World Rally-Raid C'Ships

Aishwarya Pissay, India’s motorsport trailblazer, has created history by becoming the first woman from Asia and India to win her class at the FIM World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) Portugal 2025. The 30-year-old biker from Bengaluru covered over 2,000 km across Portugal and Spain in the Rally2 Women’s class, securing 27th overall in the W2RC standings, a milestone that makes her one of the most inspiring figures in motorsports. With this historic win behind her, she is now firmly on her road to Dakar 2027, aiming to become the first Asian woman to race in and finish the legendary Dakar Rally.

Aishwarya's journey to becoming a motoracer is bound to leave people awestruck, especially in a country like India, where even a slightly different career trajectory can open floodgates of arguments from parents, relatives and society in general. And here we are, with Aishwarya not only harbouring the dream of becoming a motorcycle racer but also winning trophies for the country.

Aishwarya Pissay in conversation with SheThePeople (2019)

In 2019, Aishwarya became the first Indian to win a world title in motorsport on motorcycles, participating in the FIM Bajas World Cup and securing first place in the women's category and second in the junior's category.

Talking about her feat and what it means to her, she told SheThePeople.TV,  "I am using it to educate people about motorsports and also putting India on the map of motorsports globally," adding that, being a pioneer, she never had a reference or somebody to look up to. "I am extremely happy to be that one person for other men and women to look up to and think, 'we can achieve this.'"

Talking about how the motorsports culture for women is outside of India, she notes, "Motorsports are really celebrated among all genders outside of India. I remember when I won, and I was up there on the stage, everyone out there, including all the athletes, was cheering for me. And it was the first time an Indian had achieved something like this amongst them, so everybody was extremely happy and supportive."

Challenges of choosing motorcycle racing as a career

Starting out with road racing and then gradually moving to motorcycle off-road rally racing, Aishwarya has come a long way since she first discovered her interest in racing at the age of 18. In a short span of three years, she has won the women’s category of the 2017 National Rally Championship. She also clinched three rally wins, bringing her total wins up to six national titles before her latest world title.

However, her family did not agree to her career choice right away. "I come from a very conservative family where doing anything aside from a nine-to-five job is taboo. When I wanted to take racing professionally, there were a lot of questions asked, like whether this was normal. I believe that security is key in India, and if you have that, then you can do anything else as a passion. But when I took this up professionally and it started to pay me, my parents came around as well," she remembers.

Funding the sport

Apart from familial disagreements, there were other challenges as well that came along the way for Aishwarya. One of the major difficulties was that of arranging finances for her gears, races, etc.

"I am a self-made person, and when I say that, I mean that not even a single penny of my parents has been put into my racing career. I have worked my way up, and my skills have got me where I am today. Motorsports is one of the most expensive sports in India, and to be able to fund myself was one of the major challenges initially."

Aishwarya recounts that it took her two years to start earning money out of racing, and up until then, she was either working or borrowing. "If I didn't invest in myself, then I couldn't expect anybody else to invest in me," says Aishwarya.

Secondly, inhibitions and a lack of faith from people around her also became roadblocks for her. "As a pioneer, you've got to deal with a lot of people saying you can't do it and you can't get there, and that's also been a big challenge for me to overcome, but I did."

"There is no support from the government for our sport, but recently Gaurav Gill has won the Arjuna Award, and we believe that this achievement is going to help our sport grow," Aishwarya said. "The federation of Motorsports has been quite supportive by helping us educate people about the sport and also maintain the discipline and govern all the safety aspects  of the sport in India, and that's about it."

She has faced serious accidents in her racing career, including a ruptured pancreas and a broken collarbone, but she has always bounced back. Aishwarya says, "This is what I love, and when I get to do what I love as a profession, then there is nothing that I would trade it for. But in my career, I have had life-threatening injuries, like I ruptured my pancreas last year, and I also broke my collarbone in 2017. This is a downside for an athlete. But it is important to surround yourself with the right people, especially because it is an individual sport."

Idols in the sport

"There is a woman named Laia Sanz from Spain who races in one of the most gruelling races called the Dakar Rally, which is my dream racing event. It happens for 14 days over 700 km per day, which is one of the ultimate races every athlete in my sport wants to participate in. She is in the top 20 every year, and a lot of guys cannot even finish it, so that's who I want to be like. Then we have Indian heroes like Aravind K P and C S Santhosh, who represent India at Dakar, and these are the people whom I look up to," says Aishwarya.

With Dakar 2027 ahead, Aishwarya is not just chasing the finish line; she’s showing young racers across India and Asia what’s possible when you never give up.