Making their debut in the 2020 European Le Mans Series, Richard Mille Racing Team have announced their star-studded line-up exclusively containing female drivers.
Katherine Legge, Tatiana Calderón and Sophia Floersch have been selected to share the cockpit of the new LMP2 team, with the trio’s goal being to make an appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With the additional Le Mans guaranteed entries being given to ELMS from the 2020 season, the team will need to finish the championship in the top three to achieve this goal in 2021.
The founding of the team has come from a combination of Richard Mille himself and the head of the FIA’s Women in Motorsport Commission, Michèle Mouton. A vigorous selection process was made by the Women in Motorsport commission late last year to put together the strongest trio of female drivers.
With a similar drive to the W-Series, the aim of the team is to help talented female racers get some seat time in a more higher level racing series, growing the awareness of them and helping them secure top level drives in the future.
“For the last 10 years of so, we have worked hard to promote women in our sport, trying to open the door so women can have an equal opportunity to show they have the talent to compete at the highest levels.” Mouton said on the announcement of the team.
Team captain Legge comes with over 20 years of racing experience, from testing Formula 1 cars to GT Prototypes in her career. She has an extensive amount of endurance experience from racing the the State; experience that will be crucial to the team’s success and something invaluable she can pass onto her younger teammates.
Calderón is still pushing to be the first female driver to hold a full season Formula One seat, with her role as Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen‘s test driver continuing into 2020. Alongside her ELMS commitments, she will be taking part in this year’s Super Formula Championship, continuing to show her speed in single-seaters as well as prove she can bring her speed across to an endurance machine.
After her scary crash at Macao in 2018, Floersch is looking to remind everyone of her speed in the LMP2 category. Having raced in Formula 3 she knows what it takes to be competitive in a race car, looking to prove her speed in a different style of racing.
The team’s car will be an ORECA 07 chassis, with the car and race team provided by Signatech. They have signed up for two years in ELMS at the time of this announcement and hope to build a platform for young female racers to find their way into higher tiers of motorsport.
