Podium finish for Iron Dames to round out ELMS season

The Iron Dames completed their season on the European Le Mans Series bill with an exhilarating event at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve. Racing across the three championships on the programme, there was promising speed shown from each of the six Iron Dames throughout the weekend in ELMS, Michelin Le Mans Cup and the Ligier European Series.

ELMS

The #85 trio entered the final round in an intense championship contest with nine teams in mathematical contention for the title. After their season of extreme highs and lows, the team could take the title only with a strong result and other teams’ scores going their way.

Sarah was on formidable form by the time Qualifying came around. The Belgian ace stormed to her fourth pole position of the season by a comfortable margin over the rest of the opposition with a time of 1 minute 42.408 seconds, also earning a critical championship point in the process and putting the #85 Porsche 911 GT3 R in the strongest position for the four-hour race ahead.

This set the theme of the opening half of the race as well. Despite several Safety Cars and Full Course Yellows, cars spinning or shedding parts in front of her, Sarah was able to open up a useful advantage to the cars behind before handing over to Rahel.

Rahel did a fine job of managing the gap to the cars behind as the strategies started to shake out, before another Virtual Safety Car with around an hour to go. The entire LMGT3 field pitted, including the Iron Dames with Michelle behind the wheel to the chequered flag.

The field was bunched for the run to the finish. Michelle kept the pack behind until the final moments of the intense race, which featured more Full Course Yellow periods. With second, the team moved up the order to fourth in the standings in the ultra-close championship, just a single point away from the top three.

Source: Iron Dames