‘It is the pinnacle’: Iron Dames take on Le Mans with history in their sights

O ne hundred years on and the challenge of the Le Mans 24 Hours remains as captivating as it was when the clock began its first countdown in 1923. As the greatest sports-car race in the world celebrates its centenary this weekend, one of its little-known but most trailblazing innovations, not of technology or engineering, is pertinent now perhaps more than ever.

Swiss driver Rahel Frey knows change is coming in motor racing and while it has been torturously slow she is enthusiastic to be at the vanguard of promoting it at the vingt-quatre with the all-female Iron Dames team. She is proud of anything that can be done to encourage greater female participation in the sport, even if it is something of a cliche. Sometimes making a point, is the point.

“We have decided to race in pink suits and with the pink car,” she says. “We want to underline our message that we support females in our sport and I am proud to have such a bright car so the Iron Dames can’t be missed. I hope people who haven’t followed the race before will choose our pink Porsche and follow it throughout the race.”

Frey’s enthusiasm, shared by fellow drivers Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting, from Belgium and Denmark respectively, is palpable. Le Mans has always driven advances in racing and road car technology but for women in the sport, 100 years has been an awfully long time with awfully little representation.

The first 24 Heures du Mans was held in 1923 and the organisers, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), who put on this annual spectacle at the Circuit de la Sarthe in France, were more forward thinking than most. From the off they mandated that women were entitled to compete on an equal footing alongside men, which for the time was remarkable. The