The Iron Dames team have faced ‘challenges we weren’t expecting’ according to one of the team’s driver Michelle Gatting, amid their debut year with Lamborghini machinery.
'It's been a tough season so far in WEC [FIA World Endurance Championship] and, sure, the Lamborghini has given us some challenges. But the confidence on this specific track is maybe a little higher than all the others,' the Dane said in the pre-race press conference for the WEC season finale, the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
Last year, the Iron Dames won their first — and so far, only — GT-class WEC race, taking the flag first in the GTE class, with Gatting winning with teammates Sarah Bovy and Rahal Frey.
This year, the popular trio are aiming to repeat their success, with Gatting telling the media that a repeat is the goal.
Phil Oakley
'Yeah,' she said when asked if she and her teammates were looking to take the win for a second straight year. 'Obviously, that's always the goal when we go to a race weekend, to redo what we did last year here,' she said.
'It’s hard to assess where we are at the moment. It's for sure going to be a tricky one, but it's going to be tricky for everybody. We just have to try and push on, and hope the car is going to last.
'I think we have shown all the races that if everything is gonna go our way, we can be fighting for the tough positions. And for sure we'll try to race,' she concluded.
However, last year the team were racing the Porsche 911 RSR-19, in the GTE class. With GTE having been replaced by LMGT3 for 2024, this year they are racing the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. The Italian car has proved tricky for the Dames to get a handle on.
When asked by The Racing Line in the press conference to expand on the aforementioned challenges, Gatting added to her answer.
'This year, the issues have been mainly reliability with the car. We had issues we didn’t expect to have. Small things in pitstops, not being able to get the wheel nuts off and losing too much time in Sao Paulo.
'There was a small rubber band that broke, so we basically had to retire for reason that just came up unexpected.'
However, the Iron Dames sibling team, Iron Lynx, with team co-owner Claudio Schiavoni, Matteo Cressoni and Franck Perera (although he has been replaced by Matteo Cairoli for Bahrain) in the #60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, have not faced any such issues, as Sarah related.
'The yellow car, car 60, actually ran smoothly the whole year without any sort of issues. But somehow, the bad luck and the reliability issues just brought on our car.
'So in such a championship where the competition in LMGT3 is also extremely high, it is simply just not possible to fight for a championship, when you have, slow pit stops or non-finishes. So yeah, I would say mainly reliability has been the issue this year.'
Matt Bye
Back to Porsche?
Rumours are flying in the paddock that the Iron Dames squad will switch away from Lamborghini machinery, after just one season racing with the Italian manufacturer, to make a return to Porsche.
The Dames have been racing a Porsche 911 GT3R in the European Le Mans Series this year, so they are familiar with the car and the differences compared to both the Lamborghini, and the 911 RSR-19 they drove last year.
Gatting and her Iron Dames teammate, Celia Martin, who this year has been racing in the Le Mans Cup, a support series to ELMS, will test the 911 GT3R in the WEC rookie test. This takes place in Bahrain on the day after the season finale 8 hour race.
'The Porsche is not new for us,' Gatting began.
'We are doing ELMS this year with the Porsche, and last year with the RSR. So we got an opportunity to test with Manthey on Sunday, myself and my teammate Celia.
'Maybe it's something exciting for next year. I cannot say that yet, but for sure it's going to be nice to go back-to-back with a different car, and see what is the actual difference on this track, compared to the Lamborghini.
'I can’t say much more about that, but I’m excited for Sunday. But now the focus is about the race on Saturday,' Gatting concluded.
However, a change of car may not be the only thing in store for the Dames. Sarah Bovy’s driver rating will be upgraded to silver this year, meaning the team will need to find a new bronze-rated driver for 2024.
Bovy has been slated for upgrade to silver for the last couple of seasons, but has always successfully appealed the decision so the long-time trio of Gatting, Bovy and Frey can continue. With Martin testing at the WEC rookie test, the team could be looking for a new driver to slot into the lineup somewhere in 2025.
Finally, the test with Manthey may also be significant. More paddock rumours say the entire Iron Dames operation may switch to being run by Manthey, Porsche’s "official" customer team, next year. What would happen to Manthey’s current entries, Manthey Purerxcing and Manthey EMA, is unknown.
One thing is for certain, though: we at The Racing Line hope to see the Iron Dames back on the WEC grid for another year.
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