On International Womens’ Day, Iron Dames LMGT3 driver Michelle Gatting expresses her pride in being a Porsche contracted driver and discusses how the all-female team inspires young people.
With the start of a new season in the FIA World Endurance Championship, Porsche Motorsport has embarked on a thrilling new adventure alongside the all-female Iron Dames team.
The new far-reaching partnership will see the two powerhouses strive for success, and at the highest level of the project, Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Célia Martin will get behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 R in the WEC’s LMGT3 class, operated by seasoned customer racing team Manthey Racing.
Gatting has also been named a Porsche contracted driver, a testament to her years of hard work and dedication since competing for the Iron Dames ever since its first competitive race, the 2018 12 Hours of Dubai.
Her motorsport journey began aged seven, when a chance encounter with go-karting while on holiday in the south of France sparked an instant connection. Returning to her native Denmark, she joined a local indoor karting club and was hooked.
Gatting’s story was not straightforward though, and with financial difficulties obstructing her progress in motorsport, in 2013 she moved to Leipzig to work as an instructor at the Porsche driving experience.
That same year, she was part of the Porsche Junior selection process with Porsche Motorsport Germany, making it to the final four drivers. Though she didn’t win, she was able to race in the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany in 2014, although financial issues struck once more after just five rounds.
But her big break came in 2018, with a chance email from the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission, looking for female drivers that were interested in testing a Ferrari. She responded, and soon after met the team for the first time to begin their enduring collaboration.
Since then, she has driven internationally with the team, in series including the European Le Mans Series, Ferrari Challenge Europe Trofeo Pirelli - where she became the championship’s first female winner - and of course, the WEC.
In 2023, Gatting, Frey and Sarah Bovy celebrated a milestone at the wheel of the Porsche 911 RSR at the season finale in Bahrain, where they were the first female trio to clinch a class win in the World Endurance Championship.
After spending 2024 as a Lamborghini customer racing team, the Iron Dames have returned to the Porsche fold for 2025 - something Gatting is clearly thrilled about.
“We have made big steps with the project over the years, which is the most important thing I think,” Gatting says.
“We knew from the first time we drove the Porsche 911 RSR that it was an instant match between drivers and car. We love driving the RSR, it was really an honour to drive it in the last year of the GTE cars.
“We were a bit sad that the journey was not continuing with Porsche the year after, but we were very happy that last year we could continue in the European Le Mans Series.
Gatting’s part of that family has become even larger in 2025, having signed up to become not only a Porsche contracted driver, but also the first member of the Iron Dames to sign a Porsche contract.
A goal of Gatting’s for many years, she has worked hard to develop both personally and professionally in pursuit of a factory contract and cultivating the “right team mentality” needed for endurance racing.
“I’m really happy that Porsche is giving me the opportunity because I really think I deserve it and it has given me an extra boost that I needed, it’s given me an extra kick of motivation because that was really a milestone that I wanted to achieve,” Gatting says.
“I think it’s really important for the project, I am the first Iron Dame in the project to sign a Porsche contract and this is exactly what we want to achieve with our next generation of drivers, that we can build drivers to go in that direction.
“We have Karen [Gaillard] who just became the Porsche Junior in the Carrera Cup France, so we want to show that we are building and we are creating talents that are able to go to the highest level of motorsport.”
That development of junior talent is crucial to both the Iron Dames and Porsche Motorsport. With the alliance set to continue for several years, plans are already in the pipeline for the project to be closely linked to the German sports car manufacturer’s successful junior development pyramid.
The aim is to link the national support programmes in the Porsche one-make cups, the central Junior Programme of Porsche Motorsport and the recently introduced Iron Dames Young Talents initiative to create a path for young talents from karting to top professional sport.
Thomas Laudenbach, Vice President Porsche Motorsport, says: “Porsche stands for a culture of equal opportunities and diversity. Encouraging women to get involved in motorsport and then supporting them in open competition is something we value highly.
“In this context, we’ve seen that the Iron Dames project is well-structured and was very successful in recent years. Since our customer teams have already celebrated victories with the Iron Dames, we’re now taking the next logical step.
“We’re very confident that the collaboration in all series will reap excellent results and we can highlight our contribution to supporting female racing drivers with victories and podium finishes.”
Gatting adds: “I really believe that Porsche is one of the top brands in terms of developing drivers. We know the way Porsche builds talent is very specific, they are very good at that, they have a way that they do it.
“Many of the drivers started with the Cup cars and built up through GT cars and now they are in Hypercar, so they have a very specific way of developing talent, and this is something that we can use a lot with our project.
“I cannot think of any brand that is better at [developing talent] than Porsche Motorsport. It’s not just because we have made a great partnership with them, it’s because it is the reality.
Despite now being such a cornerstone of the Iron Dames team, Gatting was not always so enthused about joining an all-female line-up.
“To be honest, I have always been against things like this - pink cars, all-female line-ups, a lot of attention because ‘they are girls so we need to focus extra on them’,” she says. “This has always been very difficult for me.
“I drove the first pink car back in 2014, and when I got the offer to drive it I immediately said no - it was a classic Porsche 911 from 1965, and they offered me to drive in a ProAm race in Copenhagen against other professional racing drivers.
“I said no, because it’s pink, it’s everything I stand against. Then after two weeks, I had always been a spectator of this race and wanted to take part and I said no to the offer, but was it right to say no?
“So I came back to them and said sorry and that I would like the opportunity to drive and I realised that the positive response I had from the fans, from everybody following, was not a bad thing. Yes, there was a lot of attention, but I realised that actually I could turn it in a way that could work.
“So when this whole thing started and I realised it might be an all-female project, I was like why not? I get to race on the same terms as the men, I get to race the same cars, so now I just need to prove that I can be on their level. It doesn’t matter if my car is pink or blue or black or whatever, it doesn’t change anything.
“With age and maturing a bit, I realised that I could turn it to my favour and as you can see now, I’m really proud to wear pink. I think what we have done with the project over the last seven years is really quite amazing and I’m very proud of my team and everybody standing behind the project.
“Yes, we are girls, yes it is a pink race suit and everything is literally pink now, but we are fighting and we are winning races and making pole positions. When we do that, then I’m fine to be in pink.”
The team’s success has also prompted much adoration among fans, with paddocks filled with the team’s signature pink merchandise. Long queues wait to meet their racing idols at autograph sessions, with its stand at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January mobbed by young men and women.
The inspirational aspect of the team is something which Gatting feels is “quite special, honestly.”
“At races where there’s a lot of people you see the pink caps sticking out, this is really something that we often are pinching each other in autograph sessions - you see how many fans there are supporting us, some of them wearing full caps, t-shirts, pullovers, everything,” she says.
“People are really supporting us and this is also something we want to achieve, that we are able to inspire people - not only young girls, men and women, boys and girls, we want to inspire with the project.
“Not just because we are female but because what we want with the project is to inspire. We try to connect with the fans in our different liveries, the Daytona 24H livery we had really connected the car to the fans, it was very special with the post-it notes on the car where people could write their dreams.
“I just think that’s where we stand out with the project, we really try to connect with the fans and build our fanbase over the years. It’s been growing massively, also thanks to the merchandise. It’s quite special, honestly.”
Looking ahead to this season, Gatting is feeling good about the team’s prospects, but admits it’s “not going to be easy.”
“When a team has been winning a championship the previous year, with a 1-2 and winning Le Mans, I know that the championship is not going to make it easy for that team and that specific car the year after,” she says.
“It’s very normal because it’s exactly what championships don’t want - they want different manufacturers and teams to win.
“I know that it’s not going to be easy for us for different reasons but I really trust in Manthey, I know that they are very good at what they do. We can learn a lot from them and to be honest I am very calm - much more calm than I have ever been before, because I have full trust in the people we are working with.”
With a winning team behind them, a strong partnership with Porsche ahead and with a stellar line-up in the WEC this year, big things are coming for the Iron Dames.
Can they replicate their Bahrain 2023 class success? For all the latest news, keep an eye on the Porsche Motorsport Hub and the Porsche Motorsport Instagram.
