Keiko Ihara

Keiko Ihara 2014

Keiko Ihara ( Japanese 井 原 慶 子 , Ihara Keiko ; born July 4, 1973 in Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese racing car driver .

Career as a racing driver

Keiko Ihara's career as a driver came about through detours. During her sophomore year 1998, she earned the money for a ski vacation in the United States as a promotion girl for the Benetton Formula 1 team . She later also worked as a grid girl . The atmosphere at the racetracks, the loud vehicles and the activities in the paddock inspired Ihara to pursue a career as a driver.

In 2000 she came to Great Britain to learn the skills needed to become a driver in a racing driver's school. She first raced in a Lotus Elise at British club races and then drove twelve races in the British Formula Renault championship . In this championship, which ended with the overall victory of Kimi Raikkonen , she remained without championship points. In 2001 she switched to the French Formula 3 Championship . With 22 championship points she finished the season (the championship overall ranking won her compatriot Ryō Fukuda before Tiago Monteiro and Bruno Besson ) as 13th in the final ranking . She returned to Asia for the 2002 racing year and achieved historic achievements at the Macau Grand Prix . Her third place in the Formula 2000 race was the first podium place for a woman in the almost 50-year history of this racing event.

In 2003, the first racing starts in the Super GT series were added to the monoposto operations . After finishing third - behind Ho-Pin Tung and Hanss Lin - in the Formula BMW Asia 2003 , Ihara took a year off in 2004 to complete her university education. She made degrees in economics at Hosei University in Tokyo. Before her studies and racing career, she worked as a teacher for the English language.

In the following years, your racing career was repeatedly interrupted by your teaching activity. In 2005 and 2006 she competed in the British Formula 3 Championship and from 2009 drove exclusively in sports car races . In 2014 she was the first Asian woman to classify in the Le Mans 24-hour race . Together with Ricky Taylor and Pierre Ragues , she finished 14th overall on a Morgan LMP2 . From 2012 she drove regularly in the FIA World Endurance Championship . The best result was seventh overall with David Cheng and Jacques Nicolet in the Morgan LMP2 at the 2013 6 Hours of Bahrain .

Her only victory in a sports car race to date was the 2014 Fuji 3-hour race , a race in the Asian Le Mans Series this year .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2012	Gulf Racing Middle East	Lola B12 / 80	Marc Rostan	Jean-Denis Delétraz	failure	accident
2013	Gulf Racing Middle East	Lola B12 / 80	Philippe Haezebrouck	Fabien Giroix	failure	Engine failure
2014	Larbre Compétition	Morgan LMP2	Ricky Taylor	Pierre Ragues	Rank 14

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2016	Mazda Motorsports	Lola B12 / 80	Tom Long	Joel Long	Ben Devlin	Rank 7

Web links

Commons : Keiko Ihara  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• About Keiko Ihara
• Keiko Ihara at the Driver Database
• Keiko Ihara at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Keiko Ihara as Ferrari Grid Gird
2. ^ British Formula Renault Championship 2000
3. ^ French Formula 3 Championship 2001
4. ↑ Macau Formula 2000 Race 2002
5. ^ Formula BMW Asia 2003
6. ↑ 6 Hours of Bahrain 2013