Challenges Accepted
Different cars on different circuits in different series on different continents. For the Iron Dames, it's all in an endurance racing season's work.
Many top-level sports car drivers have commitments that keep them jetting between countries and competing in multiple series.
This season, the Iron Dames trio has accepted the challenge of competing full-time for two different championships and running major events in a third. As if the schedule isn't demanding enough, the team switches between two different car makes along the way.
Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting will be at Road Atlanta for the Motul Petit Le Mans IMSA season finale Oct. 12, piloting their No 83 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in the GTD class. The team's 2024 IMSA schedule has included just the 6-plus hour endurance races--Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis, and Road Atlanta.
The rest of their calendar has been filled with LMGT3 class full-season efforts in both the eight-round World Endurance Championship (WEC) and six-round European Le Mans Series (ELMS). In WEC, as in IMSA, they run a Lamborghini. But in ELMS, they compete in a Porsche 911 GT3 R
Petit Le Mans will be the trio's fifth race in six weekends--a stretch that started with the Sept. 1 WEC Lone Star Le Mans event at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, and has included races in all three series. Such a schedule is hardly easy, but Bovy says the benefits out-weight the drawbacks.
"It's an additional challenge to go from one car to another, and one championship to another," she told On Motorsport in an interview at COTA. "But I also believe that it makes us better drivers. Once you start to handle it properly and you can adapt, it can increase your qualities as a racing driver."
Another Weekend, Another Series
If anyone is learning the value of multi-series, multi-car seasons, it's Bovy, Frey and Gatting.
Last year saw them run a Porsche in the WEC's final season of LMGTE Am, winning both the pole and the finale in Bahrain for Iron Dames' first WEC victory--and the first for an all-female driving team. They also competed in GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and two IMSA races in a Lamborghini.
This year, it’s Lambo in full-season WEC and Porsche in ELMS.
"We learn from both cars and from both championships," Bovy said. "We are learning some stuff from the Lambo that we apply on the Porsche and so on. You're also working with different engineers, different teams. The more people you have around you working in the same direction, the more you can gain from it."
Sharing a car with two (and, in some cases three) other drivers at a variety of tracks in different series can make race preparation difficult. There is only so much practice time, and every driver wants track time in as many conditions as possible to minimize race-day surprises.
Still, they are inevitable. Bovy's full stint in the rain during the recent IMSA Battle on the Bricks was her first time running race laps on wet tires for Iron Dames.
Virtual Frustration
Another inevitability of a racing career is learning new circuits. Bovy's season has included debuts at several tracks, including São Paulo’s Interlagos and COTA. Unlike many drivers who run hours of laps on simulators to become familiar with a new circuit, Bovy relies more on any on-track experience she can get.
"I'm not one of those drivers who spend a lot of time on sim because they love it," she confessed with a laugh. "I actually hate sim. I get bored and frustrated very, very quickly on a simulator. So I don't do enough of it.
"Usually I try at least to know where the track is going. I do an hour or two before I go to a new track," Bovy continued. "But otherwise, I don't spend so much time on it."
Her preparation for Austin included a bit of simulator time and some testing in the rain, before the track's most recent resurfacing.
"If you actually enjoy it, you can really, really progress on sim, and I know that it's a fantastic tool," Bovy said. "I just think that for me, it's frustrating more than anything else. I'm not really learning."
Her approach is working out just fine.
The first female driver to win an FIA WEC pole (Monza, 2022), she raced to the seventh of her WEC career at Interlagos. She just missed an eighth in Austin, where she qualified second.
The Road Atlanta wrap-up to IMSA's season is just another stop on the Iron Dames' extensive 2024 schedule. They head right back across the Atlantic for the ELMS season finale at Portimão Oct. 19.
Then there's a brief break--and yet another championship seriers
Iron Dames on Oct. 8 confirmed it will team with Proton Competition--a familiar WEC partner--and make its Asian Le Mans Series debut, running a Porsche 911 GT3 R in the GT3 class.
The six-race, three-circuit season run over three weekends gets underway in early December.
Gatting is the team’s first confirmed driver.
More from On Motorsport
References
Iron Dames to Asian Le Mans--https://www.dailysportscar.com/2024/10/08/iron-dames-confirmed-for-asian-le-mans-series-debut.html
Iron Dames/Proton collaboration--https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/01/11/iron-lynx-iron-dames-fia-wec-campaign-with-proton-porsches-confirmed.html