Lilou Wadoux who is the 22-year-old first driver in LM GTE-Am at Spa

At the recent round of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship, the news was – more than the new overall victory of the dominant Toyota GR010 – the first place in the LM GTE-Am category by Lilou Wadoux, a 22-year-old female driver who brought the AF Corse Ferrari 488 of Richard Mille Racing to the finish line together with his team mates Luis Perez Companc and Alessio Rovera.
Wadoux, who was born in Amiens in France on April 10, 2001, thus became the first woman to win a race in any class in the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship and – thanks to her second place in Portimao in Portugal – she now leads this specific championship. It is Wadoux herself who talks about her career at the wheel of racing cars: “I started with karts at the age of 14 in my spare time – she recalls through her website – and on the tracks I met Julien and Florian Briché. We tied up and everything went very quickly”.
“After buying my first racing kart, after training and after my first karting races at the dawn of my 15th birthday, I had the opportunity to test it on the track with a racing Peugeot 206. I immediately felt I was in my element and motor racing seemed like the next logical step in my career.” “This – continues Wadoux – knowing that Florian was driving in the Peugeot championship. The year I turned 15 I had the opportunity to train on legendary circuits such as Magny Cours, Dijon and to follow the JSB Competition team in the European races they took place at Spa Francorchamps, at the Nurburgring”.
“And above all I was able to buy my first racing car, a Peugeot 208 Racing Cup that we completely assembled in the team’s workshops. After 2 full seasons in the 208 Racing Cup and 1 season in the 308 TCR Europe, I took part in the Alpine Europe championship Cup and in 2021 I participated in my second season in the Alpine Europa Cup”.
With the second place in this championship, Lilou Wadoux made herself known in the world of the top ‘covered wheels’ teams and had the opportunity to drive a Toyota GR010 Hybrid (similar to the Hypercar that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the WEC championships 2021 and 2022) in a post-season test for up-and-coming drivers and become the first woman to drive an LMP1 car in a track event in over a decade.
At the end of the Spa-Francorchamps race, Wadoux commented: “I’m proud of this, which is also my first success as an official Ferrari driver. For this, I want to thank everyone, starting with my team mates and the AF Corse team who performed a great The fact of being the first female driver to have won a FIA WEC race makes me happy but, I often say it, what interests me is racing and not the gender difference”.