WEC | Bovy from Hyperpole, Iron Dames from race: “Ready to fight”

The Iron Dames have claimed their second Hyperpole of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season, courtesy of the usual stellar Sarah Bovy.

On the Interlagos track, where the 6h of Sao Paulo will be held on Sunday, the Belgian placed her #85 Lamborghini in front of everyone first in Qualifying and then in the subsequent heat to attack the first position on the LMGT3 Class grid.

The blonde Bronze driver of the Huracán Evo2 also had to deal with the red flag displayed at the start of the second part of timed practice, reducing the time available to just 8′.

This did not worry her as a time of 1’34″413 was more than enough to beat all her class rivals and take her very own fifth Pole of the series.

“It’s amazing to get the Hyperpole on a legendary track like Interlagos, which I knew from pictures because of F1, plus I’m a big fan of Ayrton Senna. I’ve seen all the archives of his victories here and everything. To be able to do a good qualifying lap is a bit of a tribute to one of my idols,” Bovy began at the end of the session.

“It’s a very special feeling and I will remember it forever. Obviously, I’m in a good position to start the race and that was also important. I really hope I can do something concrete, but the rivals will be very strong.”

“Are we halfway there? I don’t think so, I imagine it will be a lot of fighting, but we are ready. I haven’t seen the division of the sectors, so I don’t know exactly if we were faster everywhere or not. I think overall we have a good balance and found something that worked.”

#85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 Evo2: Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Now maximum concentration on the race because together with Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting we will have to complete, precisely, that work begun on Saturday, in a category that is already very hard-fought and very close, with the additional unknowns of weather and tire degradation that could reshuffle the cards.

“The fact is that the grip in general is a bit low and the degradation is quite high. So, it’s not so much the track configuration, but the level of grip that changes and you have to adapt, lap after lap.”

“This is one of my strengths, so I’m happy to have used it in practice to get the Hyperpole. Hopefully in the race I can do the same in the longer stints and I think that’s the beauty of it: we have no idea what will happen.”

“Like when it rained in FP1, we didn’t do many laps understanding how to fully exploit the tyres, whether you can take them to the end of their life or be conservative, whether you can push or not. I’ll do the first stint, we’ll see what happens, but I think this is one of our strong points.”

“We always prepare for the race more than for qualifying, so I know that Michelle and Rahel have worked a lot on the long stint and have found some solutions to have a competitive car and as consistent as possible. I hope that even with the high temperature everything will go well, but it will be like this for everyone anyway.”