“Historic” Iron Dames land first all-female WEC win

The Iron Dames team of Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Rahel Frey has claimed the first ever all-female World Endurance Championship victory at the season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain, more than a decade after the series was established.

Having taken pole position with its #85 911 RSR-19, the team grabbed the chequered flag in the GTE Am class by a mere 5.5 seconds ahead of the #777 D’Station Racing entry’s Aston Martin Vantage.

As well as being the first women’s team to take a class victory in WEC - in what was the last ever LMGTE Am race before GT3s take over in 2024 - it also secured second place for the team in the 2023 Endurance Trophy championship.

Iron Dames’ maiden win comes just a few months after the team agonisingly missed out on a podium finish at Le Mans, where it led for large chunks of the race.

“It’s hard to put into words so much joy and emotion,” said team and project founder Deborah Mayer. “This first victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship is a very special moment to me because it gives full vindication to the project itself and to the passion, the dedication, the hard work of all the people within the team, both trackside and behind the scenes. This historic moment is theirs as well.”

Iron Dames was set up by Mayer in 2018 to give more women the chance to compete in top level sportscar racing: an all-female team hasn’t logged a class win at Le Mans since 1975.

“The Iron Dames project was founded with the belief that women could excel in a male-perceived world as motorsport, and we are incredibly proud of what Sarah, Rahel, and Michelle have achieved. They are proving that dreams have no barriers if you give yourself the means to make them come true. May this day inspire other women around the world to never give up on what they believe in.”

After the race, Bovy said: “I’m so proud of everybody. We’ve been working really hard for this, and it’s finally here. The wait was long, but we are all super happy to be here tonight.”

Meanwhile teammate Gatting, who brought the car home, added: “The final stint was pressured and stressful for me inside the car, but in the end, the feedback I was getting from our engineer helped make me stay calm.

“Finally getting this win is something we’ve wanted to achieve for a long time, and it’s quite emotional for all of us. We want to prove that we can compete on exactly the same terms as everybody else and we are here to win races.”

And finally, Frey summed up what the achievement meant to the team: “I think we proved today that we do not crack easily under pressure. To see that we can win races with the Iron Dames in the highest level in GT racing makes me very proud. I also hope this experience is seen by the younger generation.”

Images: Katie Potts