(Image source from: Spanish Ex-F1 test pilot De Villota dies})

Legendary woman Spanish Formula One test driver Maria de Villota is dead.

The 33-year-old former test driver was one of those few women to come very close to making it big in F1, but her career was stop dead after she met with a grisly accident last year that left her with life-threatening injuries. She sustained the crash that fractured her skull and left her blind by an eye.

She was found dead in a hotel in Seville last night. Authorities don't smell any rat and are assuming that she has died a natural death.

"We are assuming it was a natural death, but we cannot confirm anything," the spokeswoman said, adding that forensic scientists and a homicide unit would examine the scene.

Although she shunned the tracks completely after the accident, she became an idol for aspiring female drivers.

The news of her sudden demise has come as a shocker to the Spanish motor racing world.

"I feel I owe it to her (to say something) because, out of the paddock and out of the motorsport bubble, she was an incredible character, she was a fighter," Susie Wolff, a Williams development driver who had a test for the team last July and knew De Villota well, told Reuters.

"She had such a spirit for life and what she came through was a testament to her strength of character and her positive outlook," added the Scot from the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka.

"After the accident she was so behind me and had such a lust for life, she was so happy to be alive and that she'd survived it and she had so many great plans for the future.

"She was just an incredible lady, no matter about what she did on the racetrack. She was just an incredible character."

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury