20-year-old Lilou Wadoux impressed everyone in 2021 and is expected to step up to World Endurance Championship as part of a revised line-up at Richard Mille Racing. Iron Dames confirm Rahel Frey, line-up to be announced soon.
The 10th season of the World Endurance Championship will again feature two fully-female teams on the grid.
Launched in 2020, Richard Mille Racing brought the first all-female crew in a prototype class, as endurance rookies Sophia Floersch, Tatiana Calderon and Beitske Visser finished ninth in LMP2 at La Sarthe after a very promising debut season in European Le Mans Series.
The team moved to WEC in 2021 and was consistently close to the top-5, ultimately scoring two 6th places as best results at Portimao and Bahrain.
At the post-season rookie test, Richard Mille Racing tested young up-and-coming talent Lilou Wadoux, freshly-crowned W Series two-time champion Jamie Chadwick and Alice Powell.
2022 is set to see the championship's biggest grid ever, with a record number of entries both in Hypercar and LMP2 classes. Among the 15 entries in LMP2 will again be the French-Swiss Richard Mille Racing outfit - this time with a revised line-up: the first driver to be announced is 20-year-old Lilou Wadoux, who massively impressed in her second season of Alpine Europa Cup with a race-winning campaign.
Wadoux fought for the championship in the Alpine one-make series in 2021, scoring podiums throughout the season and winning her first race in spectacular fashion at Autodromo do Algarve, Portugal. She finished third in the championship.
In a one-off appearance at Le Mans, Wadoux stunned everyone with a pole position and dominant victory in the Porsche Sprint Cup Challenge France, at her GT3 racing debut.
Before the Bahrain WEC test, Wadoux had tested a LMP3 car, but had never driven LMP2 machinery. Lilou's teammates have not been announced yet.
Iron Dames will also make their WEC return in the LMGTE-Am category with the #85 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. It will be their second season in WEC after contesting the ELMS season in their debut year in 2019. The project was founded by Ferrari ambassador and Women in Motorsport advocate Deborah Mayer, and has since then grown significantly to most of the world's top GT championships under the competent assistance of Iron Lynx.
Iron Lynx - that will also operate Prema Powerteam's LMP2 car - will field two LMGTE-Am entries, and the Iron Dames line-up will once again be led by Rahel Frey. The experienced Swiss racer has an outstanding resumé, spanning from single-seaters to GT1, ADAC GT Masters, Blancpain Endurance Series, IMSA, ELMS, WEC and a victory at the 24 hours of Nürburgring in 2019.
Frey has been an integral part of Iron Dames since the programme's inception and has also taken on the Project Leader role. In 2019 and 2020, Frey raced alongside Michelle Gatting and Manuela Gostner. Katherine Legge joined the team in 2021, but a double-commitment in IMSA meant that the British racing star could only compete in WEC on a handful of occasions. From the Monza round onwards, Belgian Sarah Bovy was promoted to the main line-up and contested four races in WEC and two in ELMS, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Iron Dames announced that Rahel's teammates will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
