I don’t post about motorsport very often here because I get the impression that most of you are not very interested in it. However, I did want to mention a few things about this year’s Le Mans 24 hour race.
The race finished with a 1-2 victory for the Audi E-tron Quattro team. As you might guess from the name, these cars are hybrids.
The race was a second successive victory for the car and the driving team of Benoît Tréluyer, André Lotterer and Marcel Fässler. My interest, however, is in their race engineer. You have three drivers because it isn’t safe for anyone to drive for 24 hours non-stop. The race engineer, however, is the car’s manager and chief technical expert, and consequently has to be on the pit wall throughout the race. Take a bow, therefore, Leena Gade, also winning her second successive Le Mans. You can read more about her here.
Hopefully one day she’ll achieve her ambition to manage a Formula 1 team.
The hybrids have a big advantage in Le Mans because they do not have to pit as often for fuel. It’s good to see that the battery packs don’t slow them down enough to make a difference….
Awesome to see a woman (and a Brit!) win… that’s one tough lady.
Just returned from my first visit to the Le Mans Classic race. Shocked at the embedded prejudice aimed at the few women in the paddocks (and others). These are highly qualified engineers, many of whom race cars themselves. The embedded patriarchal discrimination against these women should be challenged by the managers and organisers.
Don’t see that the old-fashioned ‘bimbos’ in the pit lanes do anything other than reproduce and re-enforce these pathetic out-dated views.
Le Mans might be an institution, but quite honestly it needs to come into the 21st Century!
I suspect that’s true of all of motor sport. And probably of many other sports as well.