A STELLAR COMEBACK DRIVE AT THE DAYTONA 24 HOURS

With 24 hours of racing ahead of her, Michelle Gatting started the legendary contest at Daytona in 10th behind the wheel of the Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R. She battled fiercely to retain position in the early stages and after 54 minutes of running, the #83 machine darted into the pitlane for the first time.

Karen Gaillard took over as the race entered its third hour, and the Swiss racer battled on the fringes of the top five during her stints. Rahel Frey was next up, and she made good use of a restart to move up to seventh place. The battle was fierce in the GTD class though, and by the time darkness descended over the circuit, the team was back in 12th.

The night shift proved pivotal as Sarah Bovy and Gatting surged up to third in class with shrewd strategy calls that made use of Full Course Yellows. But then, disaster struck when a puncture dropped them all the way back to 15th and two laps down on the lead GTD entry. Despite the setback, the team worked tirelessly to recover lost ground, with Karen navigating a multi-car incident, bringing the car up to 12th in the last quarter of the race.

In the final four hours, the Iron Dames quartet gave it everything to break back into the top ten and eventually – aided by a Safety Car wave by in the penultimate hour – got back onto the lead lap. A fifth-place finish was tantalisingly close in a tense final 60-minute dash, but damage to the car finally denied the team a top-five with 10 minutes to go. Still, Gatting crossed the line to complete a remarkable recovery drive, claiming eighth after 24 hours of gruelling racing.

RESULTS

Michelle, Sarah, Rahel & Karen: 8th (GTD)

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Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey & Karen Gaillard debuted their 2025-spec PUMA Motorsport race suits ahead of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Our content team were on hand to capture their first public outing.

“Firstly, all of my team-mates (Karen in her first big international race) did an absolutely amazing job. The luck wasn’t on our side with the puncture and broken splitter that put us a few laps down, but the team was fighting the whole night and showed we never give up. It was a huge team effort which I’m very proud of. I was fighting with everything I had until the very end but unfortunately contact with an Aston Martin damaged the car so we finished eighth. We’ll come back even stronger!”

Source: Iron Dames