For the second year in a row, we see two teams made up solely of women pilots competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We know the 85 iron lynx and Richard Mille Racing’s No. 1 crew.
No. 1 Richard Mille Racing
- Class: LMP2; 23 cars
- Car: Oreca 07-Gibson
- Drivers: Sophia Floersch, Tatiana Calderon, Beitske Visser
- End of 2020: 13th overall, 9th in class
This crew is made up of some of the most promising names in the lower categories of motorsport, with Visser a late addition after initially scheduled driver Katherine Legge was injured in an accident. This year they compete in the European Le Mans series and currently occupy sixth place in the 15-entry class.
Calderon has competed both ELMS and the Super Formula open wheel series with its best ranked in the second position of the MRF Challenge Formula 2000. in everything from GT cars to open wheel machines, being second in the first championship of the W Series .
85 iron lynx
- Class: GTE AM; 23 approxrs
- Car: Ferrari 488 GTE
- Drivers: Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Sarah Bovy
- End of 2020: 34th overall, 9th in class
The 85th Iron Lynx team is also called Iron Dames and here the goal is to get it inspire other women, young and old, to conquer the challenges they face.
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Frey has competed in DTM, ELMS and IMSA since 2010. Gatting started with a third place finish in Formula Ford Denmark in 2011, since moving on to passenger and endurance racing. Bovy is a new addition to the team this year; competed in the first Series W championship.
The importance
The women have had a long and complex history in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Odette Siko and Marguerite Mareuse from 1930. Of the 88 races held at Le Mans before this one, 18 have had an all-female crew, with a total of 63 women enrolled in the 24-hour race. Awesome numbers on the face, but not so impressive considering the fact that there are thousands of men who have competed.
In a recent talk I had with future Nürburgring Endurance Series champion Janine Shoffner, we discussed the pros and cons of the women’s team. Shoffner has a pretty similar stance to mine: these teams offer women valuable opportunities to compete in events they don’t normally have a chance at, but it’s time we started signing women. cap equipment. Its genre should not make it a novelty that should only be limited to a specific type of equipment.
“I think right now we are in this element of, there is some support, you can raise money for a team, for a team of all the girls, and then we’ll take it and the girls will get better and, as time goes on, the women will be on teams in their own right, ”Shoffner told me.
But for now, we can give both Richard Mille’s No. 1 racing team and No. 85 Iron Lynx racing team support.