Challenging start for Iron Lynx in European Le Mans Series opener

Today, Italian racing team, Iron Lynx, began its European Le Mans series season at Le Castellet, France, with a challenging day for both the #60 and #83 cars. Race stoppages disrupted the great pace and class winning promise to score a fourth place for the #83 Ferrari of Sarah Bovy, Michelle Gatting and Rahel Frey. Meanwhile, the #60 car of Davide Rigon, Matteo Cressoni and Claudio Schiavoni secured a seventh-place finish after leading late on.

From the beginning, Iron Dame, Sarah Bovy, gained ground from third in class to swiftly take the race lead and build a significant gap in the opening stint. However, safety cars and full course yellows persistently hampered the Belgian racer’s progress. After completing almost half the race time, Bovy handed the car over to Rahel Frey, who completed some strong laps to maintain a solid position.

Meanwhile, the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari showed consistent pace, leading the race at the hands of Davide Rigon after impressive opening stints from Claudio Schiavoni and Matteo Cressoni.

With an hour to go, Michelle Gatting took over the driving duties of the #83 Iron Dames car, challenging for the final podium spot but ultimately claiming a fourth place at the chequered flag. At the front of the field, Davide Rigon was maintaining a healthy gap on the way to a win before making a late fuel stop and handing the car back to Cressoni to finish the race in seventh place.

In LMP2, the PREMA Racing team scored a brilliant overall debut victory in the series, with Lorenzo Colombo, Louis Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg showing an impressive speed and consistency throughout the race.

Team Principal of Iron Lynx, Andrea Piccini, said:

“Both cars had a very good pace through the race. For sure, the Porsches and Aston Martins had much more speed on the straight and this made it a bit difficult for us to fight and pass, but we managed to lead between the two cars for 90% of the race.

“We never got a full course yellow or safety car period at the right moment and this massively limited our potential, but we know this is part of the game in endurance racing.

“Claudio and Sarah both had very strong opening stints to put us in the best positions, and Matteo and Davide were fastest on track for most of their stints. Rahel and Michelle had a good fight with both Proton Porsches but had to give up with limited performance on the straight.

“Of course, we can take plenty of positives from this weekend and we can be happy about our potential for the rest of the season.”

The 2022 European Le Mans Series continues at the Imola Circuit in Italy for the 4 Hours of Imola on May 15th, 2022.