Latest news with #AndreLotterer
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Chadwick encouraged by female participation in motorsport before Le Mans debut
'Walk into any paddock now and you see the amount of female mechanics, engineers, drivers,' said Jamie Chadwick before her Le Mans 24 Hours debut. 'Walk into any paddock now and you see the amount of female mechanics, engineers, drivers,' said Jamie Chadwick before her Le Mans 24 Hours debut. Photograph: James Moy/Getty Jamie Chadwick believes motor racing is undergoing a fundamental change in female participation, a transition the British driver has played a central role in. Chadwick is committed to taking it even further as she prepares to compete for the first time in the endurance classic, the Le Mans 24 Hours, this weekend. The 27-year-old has long been an advocate of promoting women in motorsport, including founding her own female karting championship, and is convinced the motor racing landscape is finally beginning to change. Advertisement She will make her debut at the Circuit de la Sarthe driving for the French IDEC team, alongside Mathys Jaubert and the Le Mans veteran Andre Lotterer, a three-time winner of the world's greatest sports car race. 'I'm really encouraged by everything that we're doing now for women in the sport. If you look where we were six or seven years ago, it's a huge transition,' Chadwick says. 'Walk into any paddock now and you see the amount of female mechanics, engineers, drivers. It's changing so quickly and that's only going to go from strength to strength. I think in the next decade we'll see a huge transition, which is encouraging. 'Maybe to some people it seems forced, too much in one favour but it's important for that and in the short term it will make some difference but in the long term it's going to make a massive difference.' She goes into the 93rd edition of the meeting, that starts at 5pm BST on Saturday, very much on a roll. In the opening two rounds of the European Le Mans Series, she has gained a class win and an overall victory and her car must be considered a contender for a class win at Le Mans, a feat not achieved by a woman since 1975. Advertisement She will compete in the LMP2 class, a fiercely competitive field that sits immediately beneath the top hypercar category in a three-class, 62-car field. This season Aston Martin have returned to the top class, with Ferrari vying to take a third consecutive victory since the Scuderia came back in 2023. Chadwick, who enjoyed great success in sports cars at the beginning of her career, including a victory at the Silverstone 24 Hours in 2015, went on to blaze a trail in single seaters, taking three consecutive titles in the all-female W Series. She then competed for two years in the IndyCar feeder series, Indy Nxt, for Andretti racing, with a pole-to-flag win in 2024. She is still an ambassador for the Williams F1 team and works with their F1 Academy team but remains ambitious, with a desire to move up to the hypercar category. She says she can contribute, alongside the racing, to further promote change for women in the sport but for the moment is revelling in her chance to take on Le Mans. 'It's such a tough test, it's tough on the teams, tough on the drivers but it's something that for every driver, it's a dream to win one day,' she says. 'It's so pure, it feels very raw. 'You can be a fan of motorsport or not but you can really appreciate it's very special. Three-hundred thousand people come to this and it's a festival, a celebration of motorsport. It's very cool to be a part of it.'
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Chadwick encouraged by female participation in motorsport before Le Mans debut
Jamie Chadwick believes motor racing is undergoing a fundamental change in female participation, a transition the British driver has played a central role in. Chadwick is committed to taking it even further as she prepares to compete for the first time in the endurance classic, the Le Mans 24 Hours, this weekend. The 27-year-old has long been an advocate of promoting women in motorsport, including founding her own female karting championship, and is convinced the motor racing landscape is finally beginning to change. She will make her debut at the Circuit de la Sarthe driving for the French IDEC team, alongside Mathys Jaubert and the Le Mans veteran Andre Lotterer, a three-time winner of the world's greatest sports car race. 'I'm really encouraged by everything that we're doing now for women in the sport. If you look where we were six or seven years ago, it's a huge transition,' Chadwick says. 'Walk into any paddock now and you see the amount of female mechanics, engineers, drivers. It's changing so quickly and that's only going to go from strength to strength. I think in the next decade we'll see a huge transition, which is encouraging. 'Maybe to some people it seems forced, too much in one favour but it's important for that and in the short term it will make some difference but in the long term it's going to make a massive difference.' She goes into the 93rd edition of the meeting, that starts at 5pm BST on Saturday, very much on a roll. In the opening two rounds of the European Le Mans Series, she has gained a class win and an overall victory and her car must be considered a contender for a class win at Le Mans, a feat not achieved by a woman since 1975. She will compete in the LMP2 class, a fiercely competitive field that sits immediately beneath the top hypercar category in a three-class, 62-car field. This season Aston Martin have returned to the top class, with Ferrari vying to take a third consecutive victory since the Scuderia came back in 2023. Chadwick, who enjoyed great success in sports cars at the beginning of her career, including a victory at the Silverstone 24 Hours in 2015, went on to blaze a trail in single seaters, taking three consecutive titles in the all-female W Series. She then competed for two years in the IndyCar feeder series, Indy Nxt, for Andretti racing, with a pole-to-flag win in 2024. She is still an ambassador for the Williams F1 team and works with their F1 Academy team but remains ambitious, with a desire to move up to the hypercar category. She says she can contribute, alongside the racing, to further promote change for women in the sport but for the moment is revelling in her chance to take on Le Mans. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion 'It's such a tough test, it's tough on the teams, tough on the drivers but it's something that for every driver, it's a dream to win one day,' she says. 'It's so pure, it feels very raw. 'You can be a fan of motorsport or not but you can really appreciate it's very special. Three-hundred thousand people come to this and it's a festival, a celebration of motorsport. It's very cool to be a part of it.'
Daily Mirror
29-04-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mirror
'I spent 14 years in F1 but only raced for just one and a half laps'
Andre Lotterer was eyeing F1 opportunities for 14 years before eventually getting his shot - but the one race he competed in at the Belgian Grand Prix lasted less than two laps Andre Lotterer has made a name for himself in a number of motorsport formulas without ever cracking F1 despite being in and around the environment for 14 years. During that time though he would race on the grid for just over one lap. Opportunities simply didn't come knocking for the German, whose stock is incredibly high depending on what type of car he sits in. He has enjoyed Super Formula and Super GT success and has recently been competitive in Formula E. Lotterer enjoyed a strong junior career, which certainly put him in the shop window. Helmut Marko even had a look at him in the late 1990s but the first sniff of F1 came in 2000 with Jaguar when he was among those being allowed to test the car on almost a weekly basis. It looked as if his moment was going to come in a Monza test when Lotterer stood in for an Eddie Irvine, who was unwell, and performed strongly. He impressed the team with his pace and technical feedback, but then senior figures changed and those backing him were gone. He told The Race: "Things were not looking bad at all. But then the management completely changed and Niki Lauda came in and it seemed that the people who were supporting me were either gone or focusing on other things. I was just not in the right place at the right time I guess." And so Lotterer's wait went on, but the opportunities were drying up. He admits he wishes he'd pushed to see what options were available when he was on his A-game. "I kind of regret I didn't push more when things were good to maybe have an opportunity elsewhere," he said. Sauber showed interest and a test was booked but Felipe Massa, before his Ferrari days, went down beforehand and greatly impressed. Lotterer's manager cancelled the test, fearful that failing to match Massa's pace would reflect badly, and so the German headed to IndyCar and then Japan, where he's enjoyed the bulk of his success. Several drivers in the past, the likes of Irvine and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, had used Japanese success as a route into F1. Lotterer race with Nakajima and attempted to get an agreement in place that a championship success would grant him a shot with Honda. Instead a shock call came in 2014 from Caterham, owing to the recommendation of his first endurance racing boss Colin Kolles, who was in charge of the team. Lotterer's opportunity would come at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa, racing for a team that were struggling on the off the track. He was never expected to match the pace of Kamui Kobayashi, for whom he was filling in for. Despite those expectations he would out qualify Marcus Ericsson by almost a second in a wet session. On the Sunday Lotterer would race for just seven miles. "I went over the exit kerb a bit at Blanchimont on lap two and some fuse popped out and that was it," he said.
