Tatiana Calderón and her Richard Mille Racing team achieved their best result yet in LMP2 competition with an all-female crew in last weekend’s 8 Hours of Portimao.
The Colombian rising star and her teammates, Beitske Visser and Sophia Floersch, finished a strong sixth in the ultra-competitive LMP2 class in the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, ahead of several more experienced crews.
It marks the best result the trio have scored in either the WEC or the European Le Mans Series, giving the Signatech-run Richard Mille squad a real boost as it seeks to build momentum ahead of its second appearance in the famous Le Mans 24 Hours in August.
From 10th on the grid, Visser took the start of the eight-hour race – two hours longer than a standard WEC event – with Tatiana taking over around 90 minutes into the race for the first of two double stints behind the wheel of the crimson-liveried #1 Oreca-07 Gibson.
Surviving the hot conditions, she handed over to Floersch with just over three hours gone, before returning to the cockpit for another double stint at around the 5h30 mark.
Spending a total of three hours at the wheel of the Richard Mille car and setting the team’s fastest lap of the race, Tatiana proved instrumental in the team clinching its best result of the season so far.
“Overall it was a really positive weekend. Of course, there is still room for improvement, but I think we would have signed for P6 at the start of the weekend, so I’m really happy. I think the team did a great job, we put everything together and to achieve this result is something to savour. That said, we need to focus on the future. We have a test day this week so we can understand a bit more the car and the tyre, but since Spa we did an improvement and if we can continue in this way, we can have a good season. I really enjoyed the longer eight-hour race and now I can’t wait for Monza in a few weeks’ time,” said Tatiana Calderón.
Tatiana’s next race outing will be in the next round of the WEC, the 6 Hours of Monza, on July 17-18 – the last race for Richard Mille Racing before the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours race.
Photographs by DPPI.