This success is a double entry in the history books of the World Endurance Championship (WEC): Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Rahel Frey triumph at the season finale in Bahrain with the Iron Dames Porsche #85 and not only take the last GTE victory of the year WEC history, but also the first triumph for an all-women team.
The Iron Dames secured the GTE-Am victory after a close duel with the #777 TF Sport Aston Martin driven by Tomonobu Fujii, Casper Stevenson and Liam Talbot. At the finish line, the trio was more than five seconds away from victory, which the three “Iron Dames” were able to celebrate instead.
“The race was decided by tire management, which in the end I managed better than the Aston Martin behind me,” says Gatting in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com. The Dane beat Stevenson in the final sprint. “He’s a very aggressive driver. The way he closed the gap wasn’t exactly kind to the tires.”
Gatting keeps a cool head
“It was a bit of pressure, to be honest, and also stressful for me in the car, but in the end we managed it together with our engineer,” reports the Porsche driver. “With the feedback I got from him, he calmed me down in the car.”
“I tried to stay calm. When he got too close to me, I pushed a little harder to increase the distance, and in the end I was able to open up the gap because of the traffic and so on,” says the Dane happily. “It felt pretty controlled, to be honest.”
In the final laps, Gatting increased the lead, which was at times less than two seconds, to 5.548 seconds. “I’m happy with my performance. I just enjoyed the last drive in this car,” said the Iron Dames driver happily after her last race in the Porsche 911 RSR.
“It was an absolute pleasure to be able to drive the Porsche this year and finally achieve this victory. This was something we’ve wanted to do for a long time and to achieve it in the final race is very emotional for all of us.”
Victory “at the highest level of GT racing”
“I am very proud of the whole team and this project,” says Gatting. “That’s exactly what we want to achieve because we want to prove that we can compete at the same level as everyone else and we are here to win races.”
However, the success in Bahrain was not the first GTE victory for a woman: Lilou Wadoux secured this milestone at the 6h of Spa in May of this year when she drove the Ferrari 488 GTE Evo from AF Corse together with Luis Perez Companc and Alessio Rovera won the GTE-Am class.
With Rahel Frey, the Iron Dames have experienced support on board who has been active in the sports car sector for many years. The Swiss celebrated her Le Mans debut in 2010 when she drove a Ford GT1 from Matech Competition together with Natacha Gachnang and Cyndie Allemann.
“Our goal is always to make the team stronger. I have done the team a good service with my experience,” Frey is convinced. “Seeing that we can win a race at the highest level of GT racing with the Iron Dames makes me very proud.”
Bovy lays the foundation for victory
However, the foundation for victory was laid by Bovy in qualifying when she secured pole position. As with all races this season, the Belgian also completed the start and was able to avoid the chaos of the first corner. “She handled the situation well and kept a cool head,” says teammate Gatting to Motorsport-Total.com.
“She was able to avoid the accident by leaving the track completely. She had a good start.” Nevertheless, the trio fell behind the sister Porsche #60, which led for almost three quarters of the race. However, the team had to give up before the end because bronze driver Claudio Schiavoni was unable to complete his mandatory time in the cockpit due to illness.
This paved the way to victory for the Iron Dames. “This race was about tire management and I think we did that pretty well,” says Bovy. “We adjusted to the race conditions and the fact that we were driving into the night and we really tried to conserve our very good Michelin tires one last time.”
“In my stint, when I also drove the start, we didn’t really know what to expect in these temperatures, but in the end the pace was there and I think the whole crew did a good job,” the Porsche driver is happy about the success. “I’m so proud of everyone. We’ve worked really hard for this and now it’s finally here.”
In an interview with Motorsport-Total.com, Gatting was also relieved that the important success came at the season finale: “All three of us showed a very good performance today and this is the result.”