Fabienne Wohlwend, Liechtenstein's first female driver, gears up for the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- Jun 19
- 6 min read
From a karting dream to a Ferrari Challenge World title and W Series podiums, Fabienne Wohlwend talks about her journey in motorsports as Liechtenstein's first female professional driver, as she chases her first class win at the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring.
In a country of around 40,000 people, where the most popular sports are football and downhill skiing, only a handful of racing drivers have emerged — and just two are currently competing in sportscars.
One of them is Matthias Kaiser, who races in the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series; also racing on the European stage and making her way in GT competitions after single seater experience is Fabienne Wohlwend, Liechtenstein's first professional female racing driver.
Born in Vaduz, Wohlwend primarily competes in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie for GirlsOnly by WS Racing, with whom she finished fourth in the SP8T standings in 2022. The 27-year-old is a former Italian F4 Women’s Trophy champion (2016), the 2018 Ferrari Challenge World Champion, as well as podium finisher, pole winner during W Series’ three-season run, and an Indian Racing League title contender.
Representing Liechtenstein, Wohlwend explains:"It's an honor, I love my country and I think it's very unique and the support I get from home is incredible. I also work with the Liechtenstein Olympic Committee, which supports me and other athletes, which feels like an honor as they appreciate my sport and my work as a non-olympic athlete."
Wohlwend's introduction to motorsport came early on, as after a birthday party in which her older brother, Raphael, got a go-kart, she immediately wanted to jump into it.
"My big brother got a go kart and that got me interested," Wohlwend said. "I drove a couple of laps in a karting track in Switzerland and when I jumped out, I was telling my dad that I wanted to become a Formula One champion."
"Everyone was smiling and thinking 'crazy Fabienne again', but from that moment it was my biggest dream and now we're here living it."
Racing for her family-owned team mainly in karts in Switzerland from 2007 to 2015, Wohlwend immediately began to show strong results in the Liechtenstein and Swiss karting scenes, winning the 2008 and 2009 editions of the Liechtenstein Karting Championship in the Super Mini class, along with being runner-up in the KF3 class of the 2012 Swiss Karting Championship. During her karting career, Wohlwend also made select starts in the German Karting Championship, WSK-run series and one-off Karting events in Lonato and Castelletto, however, it wasn't an easy task getting permission to race abroad.
"For me it was always difficult," Wohlwend said. "My school didn't like the idea of me missing too many days and my parents were also very strict and I could only miss school a couple of days a year. We did the Swiss championship and it was successful, but I always wanted to do more international stuff and then I was allowed to do the DKM [German Karting Championship]."
"My best race there was probably my fourth place in Ampfing in 2014. Meanwhile for international races I was only allowed to race in Lonato and Castelletto because everything else was too far away from Liechtenstein and I would have missed too many days of school. My best race there was finishing 10th in the Trofeo Andrea Margutti in KF3. Also because the team was always father-daughter as we only rented the engines and my goal was always to end up in the finals."
Stepping up to Italian F4 for 2016, Wohlwend competed for Aragon Racing in Adria, before switching to DR Formula for the remainder of the season. Despite struggling with budget throughout the year, Wohlwend competed in all seven rounds and even came close to scoring points in the finale at Monza, taking 12th in race one and 11th in race three.
Speaking of her maiden season in single-seaters, Wohlwend recalled: "It was crazy, I came in from karting and I didn't have a lot of budget for testing, but the highlight of the season was the final round of the season at Monza where I finished 11th in the final race of the season."
With not enough budget to step up the ladder, Wohlwend began working at VP Bank to fund her racing career. As she worked for the Liechtenstein-based bank for three years, Wohlwend switched to GT racing by competing in the final season of the Audi Sport TT Cup and finishing 11th in points before joining Octane126 in Ferrari Challenge Europe.
Spending four seasons in the championship, Wohlwend finished runner-up in both 2018 and 2020 in the Trofeo Pirelli Am and Pro classes, respectively. However, her crowning moment was at the end of 2018, when she made history by becoming Trofeo Pirelli Am World Champion at the Monza Finals, at the same track where she had secured her best result in Italian F4 two years prior.
Talking about her World Finals title, Wohlwend said: "Monza is the closest track from my home in Liechtenstein, it's still a three hour drive but I just love the track, together with Ferrari it was such a unique experience and I also had a lot of friends, family and sponsors at the track, so when I was on the podium I had my entire fanclub in the background and it's a memory I will cherish forever."
After winning the Ferrari Challenge World Finals, Wohlwend was called up by W Series to race in the inaugural season of the all-female championship. The Liechtensteiner competed in all three seasons of W Series, finishing sixth in points in the first two seasons, during which she scored a pole position and three podiums, with a best result of second at Silverstone in 2021.
"I think W Series changed my life," Wohlwend said. "When I started I was working full-time in a private bank in Liechtenstein because my family supported my career with the condition that I need a plan B. My plan B was to finish school and then I worked full-time for three years before I was confident enough to go all in with racing."
During her time in W Series, Wohlwend received a call from WS Racing to race in the NLS as part of their GirlsOnly team; however, due to her busy schedule, she wasn't able to take up the offer initially. Things changed after Wohlwend got her permit to race at the Nürburgring in 2019 and after claiming a class podium in NLS3 in 2021, the Liechtensteiner joined WS Racing to make her debut in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring alongside Nicolaj Kandborg, Niklas Kry and Tobias Wolf.
"They approached me a while back," Wohlwend said. "But I was so busy with my commitments with W Series and Ferrari Challenge that I couldn't commit to another program, which is a luxury problem as a racing driver. But then Octane126, the team I was racing for in Ferrari Challenge, their main goal was to also win the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, so I needed to get my permit done."
"After getting the permit, I contacted the GirlsOnly team and luckily they were in need of a driver because two of their girls didn't get their permit on time. I jumped in and we had such a good weekend that the boss said that I was gonna join the team full time the following year."
"Three years later, we're still here, still competing and still working on changing the face of motorsports."
As the NLS is endurance-focused, each car is shared between multiple drivers—typically three or more. Which was a new experience for Wohlwend, who until 2019 drove solo in single-seaters and Ferrari Challenge.
"It's a lot of compromises," Wohlwend explains. "Starting with the setup, then who is driving first and so on. I love doing the starts, there is a lot of adrenaline and pressure but I like it, and from then it's working with your engineers to put the team into focus rather than yourself."
Wohlwend is no stranger to the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, having raced at the event four times since 2021. The last three of her participations were with the GirlsOnly team, with whom she finished on the SP8T podium in all of them, claiming a best result of second in class in 2023.
As part of the race's sole all-female team, Wohlwend said: "A lot of people think it's drama but I think as any other racing team we are focused on the goal of winning the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring."
"The 24 Hour race is coming up and in the last weeks we had the qualifying races with typical Eifel weather. It was horrendous but now we're ready for whatever the big race throws at us."
When Wohlwend isn't competing in the NLS, she attends GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup races as Rowe's brand ambassador and doing media content for Rowe Racing's social media.
"I've been following the team for a long time and I felt honored when they asked me if I wanted to become their new brand ambassador," Wohlwend said. "I was kind of used to doing media stuff with GirlsOnly and even in W Series, but this is a very cool experience nonetheless."
With the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring coming up this weekend, Fabienne Wohlwend is aiming to take her first class win in the famous endurance event, alongside teammates Patricija Stalidzane, Janina Schall and Carrie Schreiner as they will compete in the AT3 class.
