Dare to Dream

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. A deep male voice counts down on the radio, as the 911 GT3 R’s engine roars. Michelle Gatting of Denmark steps on the gas – and even as the rear springs into action, she maintains full control of the vehicle. The scene is reminiscent of a NASA rocket launch. The garage, too, feels like the inside of a space station with its light-grey, clinically clean floor. The engineers are seated on folding chairs in the room next door, their eyes trained on the 12 monitors. They’re observing the vehicle’s every movement, analyzing technical data, and comparing times.

Since the project was launched in 2018, 39-year-old Frey of Switzerland and 31-year-old Gatting of Denmark have been competing together in GT races. With their former teammate Sarah Bovy of Belgium, they celebrated historical success in November 2023. They were the first all-women team to win a WEC race, which they did in the 911 RSR in Bahrain, and clinch the runner-up title in the championship. Because the WEC calls for a mixed team of professional and amateur drivers and Bovy is now classified as a professional, 34-year-old Célia Martin of France joined the team in 2025. Considered to be a rookie, she completed her first season in the GT3 the year before.

They’ve earned respect through their achievements

“Rahel, get ready to take over,” says the male voice, engineer Bartholomäus Pasionek, on the radio. Frey pulls the balaclava over her blond locks and dons her helmet. Gatting navigates the GT3 R into the pit and pulls right up to the lollipop sign, which shows her just where to stop. Frey gets in, the engine roars, and the mechanic lifts the sign – her signal to go. Every movement is precise, like a perfectly rehearsed choreography. 

It didn’t take long for the scene to discover what the Iron Dames are all about: genuine competition. That hasn’t always been the case with all-women teams. The focus was often on just being different. “There’s often an emphasis on the fact that you’re a woman – not that you have talent,” says Martin from personal experience. The Iron Dames don’t want to be treated any differently just because they’re women. After all, the physical requirements in motorsport are no different for women than they are for men. They don’t want to be confronted with preconceived notions either. “Of course, she had an accident – she’s a woman.”

A season full of challenges

“Oftentimes we were a little too aggressive. You can’t force the car. You need to be patient.” The first three WEC races in Qatar, Italy, and Belgium posed a real challenge for the trio, with the podium ultimately remaining elusive.

They viewed the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the traditional season highlight, as an opportunity to prove themselves. It was the seventh time that Frey and Gatting had traveled to Sarthe together for the prestigious, classic event. For Gatting, who has a tattoo with the logo of the 24-hour race on her left forearm, it’s more than just a competition. For weeks, she pushed herself hard training for the event. After all, it could ultimately prove to be the most important race in her career. As the only one to be awarded a Porsche contract as part of the new collaboration between Porsche Motorsport and the Iron Dames, she represented the manufacturer. She wanted to show what she had spent years fighting for.

Painful setback in Le Mans

Gatting’s dreams of crossing the finish line were shattered at 5:30 p.m. on a Sunday a week before the event. On a day of testing in the second training stage, the session was red-flagged after just seven laps, plunging the pit lane into chaos and upending procedures. 

Gatting climbed out of the car and stood in the door, waiting for Frey. At that hectic moment, the 1,350-kilogram race car, which was raised on the integrated airjacks, dropped onto Gatting’s right foot.

That put an end to her personal Le Mans experience and kicked off a challenging period of time. Three bones were broken, which Gatting could immediately feel. The X-ray confirmed the bad news: There was no way she could compete. “Fortunately, Sarah was able to step in,” says Frey. Because Gatting, who is classified as a professional, could no longer compete, Bovy of Belgium was able to take her place. Bovy had already competed in Le Mans four times and knew exactly what awaited her. “I wasn’t at all expecting to drive this year,” she said in the run-up to the race. “The most important thing is that Michelle is not seriously injured. I’ll do my best.” It wasn’t until Bovy put on Gatting’s coveralls that Gatting truly resigned herself to the situation. Not being a part of it was more painful for her than the injury itself. “I kept my emotions under check. But when I got to my room in the evening, I was overcome with tears. That was the low point of my career,” she says with a tremble in her voice. She pauses for a moment. “Even after the race, when Sarah asked me if she could keep my coveralls, it was still emotional for me.” Propped up on crutches inside the garage, she watched her teammates put up a fight in the 24-hour race one week later. First, another vehicle pushed Frey off the course, and then later technical damage dashed any hopes of good results.

Two and a half weeks later, Gatting was back behind the wheel in the European Le Mans series, clinching the championship title with Martin and Bovy. She was in pain, but it’s the strength to get up again that distinguishes a good athlete from an excellent one. Their resilience – their mental strength – is what has time and again strengthened the Iron Dames during their individual journeys from girls with a dream to their current status as professional race car drivers.

Getting back up again and again

Gatting still vividly remembers the moment seven years ago when she shouted to her parents on the phone, “We’re going to Le Mans!” At that time, she was convinced that her career was actually already over. Her parents had financed her karting activities, which were anything but cheap. At the age of seven, Gatting had developed a reputation among all the boys for driving with her elbows out. Her parents even gave up their home for their daughter’s career, temporarily living in hotels. Following her advancement to the Porsche Carrera Cup, the money ran out in 2014, a fate shared by many race car drivers. It was the talent scouting of the FIA Women in Motorsport initiative that got Gatting back into the game. “I drove like my life depended on it. It was my last chance.” 

It’s the setbacks that make the team stronger. Winning together is easy. But it’s the shared losses that reveal the team’s resilience, which is so important for success. “We have dedicated our lives 100 percent to this sport,” says Gatting, who in addition to the Le Mans tattoo has another on her arm: “If you dream it, you can do it.” Gatting, Frey, and Martin have embraced this attitude throughout their careers, and during this season, in which the WEC final in Bahrain is yet to come. They just might clinch another success when they return with Porsche, like the one in 2023, inspiring once again countless girls and women around the world to not give up and to believe in their dreams. And possibly even get behind the wheel of the 911 GT3 R themselves one day, where they’ll hear: “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” 

The Iron Dames Project

In line with the slogan “Porsche X Iron Dames – because every dream matters,” a close collaboration between Porsche Motorsport and the well-known project to promote women in motorsport kicked off at the start of the 2025 season. While the Iron Dames have competed with Porsche race cars in the past, they will now be driving them exclusively, further intensifying the collaboration planned for several years. 

Entrepreneur and race car driver Deborah Mayer launched the project in 2018, as she realized that there was not enough support for women in motorsport. Her motivation was to ensure equal opportunity – and prove that women in motorsport can not only keep up, but also win. Since then, the project has been supporting young women on their journey from karting to high-performance GT races like the World Endurance Championship (WEC). In addition, drivers from the Iron Dames cosmos also compete in Formula and rally sport. The lineup this season will include a total of 16 women drivers in a variety of series. One aim is to dovetail the Iron Dames project with national support programs in the Porsche brand cups and the central Porsche Motorsport Junior program. “The Porsche brand cups will represent an important step in the rise from karting to international GT sport,” says Franziska Baier, Iron Dames Head of Marketing and Communications. “We’re delighted to be working with a manufacturer that values dreams as much as we do.”

The program highlight: the World Endurance Championship (WEC), in which Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey, and Célia Martin compete in the LMGT3 class with the support of the Manthey team in the pink 911 GT3 R. The experienced customer team won all of the titles in the GT3 category in the 2024 WEC debut season. 

Proton Competition operates as a racing team for the Iron Dames in the Asian Le Mans series, the European Le Mans series, and the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Through the collaboration, Gatting has been promoted to Porsche factory driver.