'Iron Maiden' Simona de Silvestro sets sights on bobsleigh at Milano-Cortina 2026

Simona de Silvestro is a big name in car racing and is now ready to take her skillset to the Olympic bobsleigh track.

One of only three women ever on an IndyCar podium, De Silvestro knows a thing or two about speed and now she's ready to start her Olympic journey.

"Since quite some time I always felt inspired watching the Olympic Games," the 33-year-old wrote on her Instagram on 17 February.

"A few years ago I started thinking how could I achieve this dream. I looked at all the sports and came to the conclusion that with my racing background Bobsleigh could be the sport to get me there…

"So last summer I decided that if I wanted to achieve this dream I would need to give it a go this winter.

"Since December it has been a busy racing off season with getting the grips of sliding down the ice tracks before the racing season starts again."

De Silvestro, who is also known as the 'Iron maiden' and 'Swiss miss', competed in IndyCar for a number of years before moving to Australia to drive in Supercars and trained with the Formula One Sauber team too, although she never raced in F1.

After three years in Australia she returned to Europe for the 2020 season as a factory Porsche GT driver, and was Porsche's reserve driver in Formula E.

Now she's already had her first taste of monobob racing over the weekend in the Swiss championships, where she finished fifth.

De Silvestro chose a relatively new Olympic discipline in monobob - a one-woman sled - which made its debut at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

The United States' Kaillie Humphries became monobob's first ever Olympic champion at Beijing 2022 with Melanie Hasler represented Switzerland, finishing seventh.

So how was de Silvestro's first race?

"Fun first race outside of a