Rahel Frey: "Everything fit" 🎥
PODIUM IN THE ELMS That was quick: In the women's team of Kessel Racing, Rahel Frey celebrated her first podium in the European Le Mans Series in a Ferrari GT3 from Kessel Racing. That was a debut in style: At the first round of the European Le Mans Series at Le Castellet, Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting [...]
It was a debut in style: In the first round of the European Le Mans Series at Le Castellet, Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting (DK) and Manuela Kostner (I) brought Kessel Racing's Ferrari F488 GTE Evo home in second position in the GT class. They thus confirmed their second place from December at the 12 Hours of Ab Dhabi, and did so in the face of now much stronger competition.
Double victory for the Swiss GT teams
After the Dane had qualified the blue Ferrari for fifth place on the grid in the nine-car LMGTE class, the trio of women gradually worked their way towards the podium over a four-hour race. During her double stint in the middle of the race, Rahel Frey set the sixth-fastest lap of all 27 GT drivers.
With a lead of 12.3 seconds over the Porsche of Dempsey Proton Racing, second place was the result. Victory went to the Swiss-flagged Ferrari team of American Michael Luzich.
Rahel Frey: "We weren't that great in qualifying, but we found a good setup for the race and were able to go full throttle from start to finish. It couldn't have gone any better. For the whole team, this is a terrific result."
Countdown for Le Mans
This was also an important confirmation for the project supported by the Automobile World Federation for the promotion of women in motorsport. Michèle Mouton, the president and fastest female rally driver of all time, followed the action on site.
Rahel Frey: "We sometimes feel that we are ridiculed, but we women are used to that. So this is a great chance to convince everyone of that. It gives us the motivation for everything that's still to come. Whereby we are not naive: The others will certainly get faster, and there are tracks coming up where driving in traffic with all the LMP cars will be more difficult."
The highlight for the women's trio will be the start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mid-June.
No podium for the Swiss in LMP2
Overall victory went to the Brits Hedman, Hanley and Allen on DragonSpeed's Oreca-Gibson. Jonathan Hirschi from Neuchâtel in the French Graff Racing team finished 98 seconds behind in 5th place on an identical model. The fourth-fastest Swiss team in qualifying, Cool Racing with Nicolas Lapierre, Antonin Borga and Alexandre Coigny, dropped back to 7th place in the race with a lap down.
The following short video shows the highlights of the ELMS opener in the south of France:
https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanLMS/videos/273180146927183/
facebook.com/FIAWomenInMotorsport/
