Curations: meet 4 women racing drivers who have made history with Richard Mille team
- Swiss luxury watch brand’s racing team impresses in 2020 European Le Mans Series to prove motorsport no longer remains a man’s world
- Katherine Legge, Tatiana Calderón, Sophia Floersch and Beitske Visser – who all made their mark in karting as children – have overcome numerous barriers
For decades, men have dominated the headlines in motorsport, but now a handful of women have stepped into the spotlight.
The drivers of Swiss luxury watch brand Richard Mille’s racing team made history this year as the first team of women to compete in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class in the 2020 European Le Mans Series.
Three of the most talented women in the sport – team captain Katherine Legge, Tatiana Calderón and Sophia Floersch – were chosen for the Richard Mille Racing Team in 2018 after a highly competitive assessment by the Women in Motorsport Commission in Navarra, Spain.
Earlier this year, however, Legge was seriously injured during a pre-race test drive in France, and Dutch newcomer Beitske Visser stepped in to replace her.
The team went on to have a strong debut in the Le Mans Series, ranking in the top 10, and also put in a stellar first performance at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans race in September, finishing 13th overall and ninth in the LMP2 class.
In the wake of these successes, we meet the women behind the wheel and find out how they rose through the ranks in motor racing.
Tatiana Calderón
As a nine-year-old go-karting in her hometown of Bogotá, Colombia, Tatiana Calderón knew she wanted to become a racing driver. By age 16, she became the first woman to win a national karting title in the United States.
Fast-forward to the present day, and the 27-year-old driver is the highest-ranked woman in single-seater racing.
Calderón’s career took off after she moved to Europe in 2012. That year, she raced in the European Formula 3 Open and finished ninth in the championship. In 2013, she became the first woman to make it to the podium in the British Formula 3 series.
By 2017, Calderón was the first Latin American woman to go behind the wheel of a Formula One racing car.
She signed on as a developmental driver with Sauber Motorsport’s Formula One team, and soon after was appointed as the test driver for the Alfa Romeo Formula One team, behind drivers Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson.
While racing in the Formula One-supporting GP3 Series from 2016 to 2018, she emerged as the most successful woman in the history of the championship.
Competing in the Le Mans Series is the realisation of what was a lifelong dream for Calderón. Now at the pinnacle of her racing career, she is determined to prove that women can compete on equal terms with men.
Sophia Floersch
At 19 years old, Sophia Floersch is the youngest member of the team, but she has already built a reputation for raw talent and speed that is rivalled by few women in motorsport.
The German driver first slid behind the wheel of a go-kart when she was just four years old. Her first racing success came very early, when she won the Easykart European Championship at the age of nine.
In 2015, she made history in the British Ginetta Junior Championship by becoming the youngest driver to win two races in the same round.
However, midway through the season, she withdrew to prepare for single-seater racing in Formula 4. The next year, she became the first woman driver to score points in an ADAC Formula 4 race.
By 2018, Floersch had moved up to racing in Formula 3. Unfortunately, during that year’s FIA Formula 3 World Cup in Macau, her car crashed at a speed of more than 276km/h (171mph), leaving her with a fractured spine.
A video of the horrifying crash went viral, but it garnered Floersch a great deal of support from around the world.
Less than a year later, she had fully recovered and once again stepped into an F3 car at Monza, Italy, going on to finish seventh overall in the 2019 Formula Regional European Championship.
As Floersch continues to go from strength to strength, her tenacity and determination have not gone unnoticed. In February she received the World Comeback of the Year honour at the 2020 Laureus World Sports Awards, held in Berlin.
Katherine Legge
British driver Katherine Legge may have been forced to sit on the sidelines this season because of injuries, but she remains an integral part of the team as its captain and strategist.
She has now nearly recovered after breaking her leg and wrist in a July crash, soon before the opening race of the 2020 European Le Mans Series.
Widely recognised as one of the fastest women in motorsport, Legge has had a meteoric rise to success. The 40-year-old driver began her career karting in Britain before moving to the US.
In 2000, she became the first woman to claim pole position in a British Formula Ford Zetec race.
The following year she beat famed Ferrari Formula One driver Kimi Raikkonen‘s lap record during the Formula Renault season, and also took home the British Racing Driver Club’s prestigious Rising Star award.
Legge’s breakthrough came when multimillionaire Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven gave her a chance by sponsoring her for six races, including in the 2005 Toyota Atlantic Championship series.
When she won the series opener in California, she became the first woman to win a major open-wheel race in North America.
Since then, Legge has built one of the most diverse résumés in the industry. She has been behind the wheel of Indy cars, sports cars and GT racing cars, and has competed in the British Formula Three Championship, Indianapolis 500, the all-electric Formula E series and Nascar races.
Now a member of the FIA’s Women in Motorsport Commission, the veteran racer continues to pave the way for women drivers across the globe.
Beitske Visser
As a rookie LMP2 driver racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time, Dutch driver Beitske Visser had a star-making performance.
The 2020 W Series Esports League champion took injured captain Legge’s spot in the Richard Mille Racing Team line-up at the last minute.
“It wasn’t easy to be ready on time given this year’s condensed schedule,” she said. “That makes it even more unbelievable that we finished this race that everyone wants to take part in, let alone being placed in the top 10 of our class.”
The 25-year-old joined the Richard Mille Racing Team after clinching the title in the W Series, which is renowned as the world’s first single-seater series exclusively for women drivers, in August.
Visser grew up in the Netherlands, where her father used to race, and she became fascinated with karting as a toddler and started driving at the age of five.
She began her racing career with various karting championships and quickly made a name for herself once she started competing internationally as a teenager.
Visser was the first woman driver to join the BMW Motorsport Junior Programme, and she went on to become a Formula E test driver.
In 2018, she raced in the GT4 European Series, finishing first and second in two Silver class races. Beyond her achievements on the track, she continues to set an example for younger drivers and fight for gender parity in motorsport.