The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the biggest races in the world. For the second year running, the French endurance classic will have two all-female squads paving the way and contesting the twice-around-the-clock enduro.
GTE Am is shaping up to be an intense battle with no less than 23 cars taking part. One of them is the #85 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, entered by the Iron Lynx operation.
Dubbed the ‘Iron Dames’, the team is taking part in the race for the third year in a row, but there is one notable difference in the driver line-up as Belgian Sarah Bovy makes her Le Mans debut alongside Michelle Gatting and Rahel Frey, who both contested the previous two editions.
That means Frey was also there during the somewhat bizarre 2020 edition, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the famous race behind closed doors for the first time ever.
“It’s always good to be back in Le Mans,” Frey told MotorsportWeek.com. “We are really happy about that fact and we also very happy to have some spectators back but it’s still the same atmosphere. I mean, the paddock it’s still a known bubble and we don’t have the drivers parade yet and so on.
“But nevertheless, we are happy to race. We feel ready to race we we have a strong lineup, we have a strong core, and we believe we can do something great.”
Bovy, 32, makes her Le Mans debut with the squad this weekend. The Belgian has been part of a revolving cast of drivers for the #85 Ferrari. The team started the season with Frey, Katherine Legge and Manuela Gostner.
Gatting then replaced Legge starting at round two at Portimao, before Bovy was inserted in place of Gostner at Monza and now joins the team at Le Mans.
Although new to Le Mans, she is not a new name to endurance racing. Along with a few starts in the W Series, she has previously raced various GT3 cars in what is now the GT World Challenge Europe.
“I’ve been looking up a lot to Rahel and Michelle before my arrival in the team, but also especially since I’m in,” Bovy spoke of her team-mates. “It’s a very specific car to drive, it’s a very specific race to do. So for sure in terms of guidance, I couldn’t do it without their help. That’s 100% certain.”
“Now, it’s true that I had already quite a little bit of endurance experience, it’s not my first 24 hour race, even if it’s the first 24 hours of Le Mans. So it’s good that I have at least a little bit of long race experience, I think it’s going to be very helpful to manage the race properly.”
“But in terms of specifics to Le Mans, for sure. It’s very good to be surrounded by people who have done it already.”
At this point in the interview, Frey takes charge and gives more background about Bovy’s role and arrival at the team.
“What I’d like to mention is – we are really impressed by Sarah so far,” she said. “And we really wanted to give her the chance to do this 24 hour race with us.”
“Basically, she introduced herself to us. She said ‘Do you need some some more support? I’m here and I can jump into a plane like tomorrow’, and this is what she did. I really liked that story. Because basically, this is what what we stand for. Our slogan is ‘We are women driven by dreams’.
“Sarah had a dream to join us. She chased that dream, she worked hard for it, she really called us up. Basically this is something we support a lot and this is also the message we want to spread into the world: keep chasing your dreams and the reality hopefully, will pay off then, that the dream comes true.”
Bovy makes her Le Mans debut in an unusual environment, as this is the first Le Mans since the pandemic started where fans will be back in attendance. It is not yet the full package, with a mere 50.000 fans as opposed to the 250.000 spectators that typically make the pilgrimage to the track under normal circumstances.
According to Bovy, this ‘in between’ version of the event is beneficial to her making her debut.
“I actually think that this is a good year to have a rookie year at Le Mans, because it’s a little bit in between. We have a bit more time to prepare ourselves for the big race.”
“Indeed, we don’t have the parade and it’s very sad, because normally I’m here each year, not as a racing driver, but I follow it very closely. I know the audience, I know how it is and I know also how exhausting it can be for the drivers.”
“So I have the feeling that with everything that happened for me in the last few months, it’s a good thing that I can take it maybe a little bit easier than a normal year. And then hopefully, if I can get back here in the coming years, I hope that I will have a full experience.”
Bovy’s comments echo those made by somebody who made her Le Mans debut last year: Richard Mille Racing Team’s Beitske Visser.
The Dutch racer, also part of the W Series in 2019, is back at Le Mans for her second consecutive year as part of the squad for the #1 Richard Mille Racing Team ORECA 07-Gibson. She shares the car with Tatiana Calderon and Sophia Floersch.
Visser spoke about her experiences during last year’s race earlier in the week, saying that the compressed schedule without fans allowed her to focus on the task at hand better.
“I didn’t have the experience with all the fans but I think on one way it was maybe a bit easier, because it was the first time here for us,” she said. “We had so many things to learn in a short time that we could just focus on the driving part. But now seeing the fans again this year, it’s a lot cooler.”
Visser’s debut in 2020 was something of a last-minute arrangement, as she was not originally intended to race with the team at Le Mans. Instead, she was inserted into the line-up when Katherine Legge sustained injuries from a crash at Paul Ricard.
When asked if she was more prepared for the race now compared to her rookie outing in 2020, Visser replied:
“Definitely. Because last year, I only came in halfway through the season and I was joining the team last year because I was stepping in for another driver and now I’m fully there since the beginning of the year so that makes things a lot easier in preparation for me as well.”
Like the Iron Dames, Visser is part of a full-season World Endurance Championship effort with Floersch and Calderon.
“It’s definitely good to have good team work between the three of us,” Visser spoke of her team-mates. “The fact that I am now there fully makes that easier as well. We just have to work together.”
“It’s a bit different this year with less power and different tyres so there is a lot of new things we still have to learn. But it’s definitely a much better preparation than last year.”
Over at Iron Lynx, the team is well prepared for its third consecutive assault on the race in GTE Am. The team is feeling confident, which reflects in the targets that Frey says the team is setting.
“We got a ninth place now two years in a row. The first year we came to Le Mans, we definitely said ‘first we want to finish the race.'”
“But we grew quickly. We understood very well what it’s all about. With the experience we got the last two years we really believe that we can do well. Now, we feel ready and basically, we want to be better as the last two years.”
“We would say that we want to reach the top five. The competition this year, it’s very high. But Sarah joining us, the practice session went well. We have to believe in us. And we definitely want to go for the top five.”
“We had two years without doing any mistakes,” she continued. “So we already proved that we can stay focused throughout the 24 hours, that we are able not to do mistakes.
“The last two years, we were lacking a little bit of speed, I would say, from driver’s side. So far from the first practice session we felt somehow that we are able to do better than the last two years. And this is something we really want to prove.”
