Vanina Ickx

Vanina Ickx

Nation:	Belgium
DTM
First race:	Hockenheimring 2006
Last race:	Hockenheimring II 2007
Teams (manufacturers)
2006–2007 Futurecom TME ( Audi )
statistics
Starts Victories Poles SR 20th - - -
Podiums:	-
Overall wins:	-
Points:	-

Vanina Ickx (born February 16, 1975 in Brussels ) is a Belgian racing driver and daughter of the six-time Le Mans winner and two-time Formula 1 vice champion Jacky Ickx . She currently lives with her partner in Wiesbaden .

Career

Although she visited her father irregularly at the race track as a child, Ickx was hardly interested in motorsport. Instead, she invested most of her free time in equestrian sports during her school days and regularly took part in competitions. But Jacky Ickx did not try to get the daughter excited about motorsport either. Ickx said in an interview in 2005:

“Il n'est pas très expansif… Il ne nous parlait jamais de son métier, il ne nous emmenait pas sur les circuits. Je ne connaissais rien à la course. »

“He's rather unobtrusive. He never talked to us about his work, he didn't take us on the tracks. I didn't know anything about racing. "

First steps in motorsport

After school, Ickx began studying biology and, despite her lack of interest, made her debut in motor racing . In 1996 she started as a substitute driver in the BMW Compact Cup . According to her own statements, she got into racing more by chance when a young woman in the gym asked her about it, because she could no longer compete in her actual team because of a pregnancy, and asked if Ickx would do this with a view to the successes could not imagine her father.

In the same year she started in the first long-distance race, the 24-hour race of Spa-Francorchamps . This was followed by several starts in various touring cars , including in the 1998 24-hour race with her father Jacky, whom she also accompanied as a co-driver in the Paris-Dakar rally . However, with the experience gained, her father gave her more freedom, so Ickx commented on the relationship in 2005:

“Je sais qu'il commence à être très content des résultats que je fais, mais il ne me le dira pas trop. C'est bien comme ça, j'ai son esprit d'indépendance, je ne supporterais pas qu'il soit tout le temps derrière mois! »

“I know he's starting to be very happy with my results, but he won't tell me that too clearly. That's good, I have some of his independence in me and I think I couldn't stand it if he was always behind me. "

Until 2000, Ickx hardly took part in races because of her studies. However, this year she was given the opportunity to take part in a run of the Belgian GT championship with a Ferrari 360 Modena . In addition, she started again in the 24-hour race of Spa-Francorchamps, which she finished with a podium finish together with Anthony Beltoise and Thierry van Dalen in a touring car from Peugeot . The following year she competed in the Paul Belmondo racing team at the Le Mans 24 Hours , but was unable to finish the race. She was also unsuccessful in the endurance race in Spa in a Porsche 996 GT3 RS from Freisinger Motorsport . At Freisinger, she was initially supposed to drive a Porsche in 2002. She was registered for the 12-hour race at Sebring , but had to vacate the place and made contacts with the Belgian car manufacturer Gillet , for whom she competed in Spa in 2002. Ickx also crossed the English Channel in a light aircraft that year and later in her career set a world speed record on skis on a ski jump . Ickx commented on the motivation in 2006 as follows:

“I don't like the routine. I want to learn something new all the time. I have just started to learn German. It's a challenge too, just not that crazy. "

Le Mans Endurance Series and Belcar

Vanina Ickx at the Spa-Francorchamps 1000 km race in 2005

In 2003, she launched alongside the endurance race of Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps for two championship races in a single-seater of Formula Renault . In 2004 she tried her hand at several series. She regularly competed in a Porsche 996 GT3 RS in the championship races of the Le Mans Endurance Series for T2M Motorsport, for which she had already competed in Le Mans last year. She also tried her hand at the newly created LMES companion series Formula X , which was discontinued early in the course of the year. She also started as a women's team with Alexandra van de Velde on a Mini in the Belcar and at the Zolder 24-hour race. Except for a podium at the Nürburgring , the duo was not very successful. In addition, she drove as a guest starter in the one-make cup Porsche Supercup and in several races of the European Ferrari Challenge . Her greatest success in 2004 was the G3 class victory in the Porsche 996 GT3 Cup in the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race for the Belgian Mühlner Motorsport team. Ickx's program in 2005 remained varied, in addition to guest starts in the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany , Seat Leon Supercopa Germany and three races in the FIA ​​GT championship for Gillet, the Le Mans Endurance Series and Belcar formed her main field of activity. So she took turns in the Belcar again with van de Velde at the wheel of the Mini. After a class win in the first race on the Circuit Zolder , the team was unable to build on this success in the course of the season. In the LMES, however, she achieved several podium placements in the Dallara SP1 with João Barbosa and Martin Short . At the end of the year she reflected on her results in the Le Mans prototype :

"En montant dans un proto, j'ai franchi un palier et en obtenant de bons résultats, je crois que je me suis crédibilisée beaucoup. J'espère pouvoir continues en LMES et m'améliorer. Ma carrière avait besoin d'un peu de tout, au gré des opportunitès qui se présentaient. »

“At the moment I have taken a step forward in the prototype with the good results. I think I've gained a lot of credibility. I hope I can stay in LMES and keep improving. My career needs a little stability and less distraction. "

DTM

Ickx at Brands Hatch 2006

According to their knowledge, Ickx initially reduced their program to just one series in 2006, but then signed a contract with Futurecom TME for the DTM . In the 2006 DTM season , she drove an Audi A4 from 2004. With the two-year-old vehicle, she had practically no chance compared to the current and previous year's models and was mostly behind the field in last place. In the 2007 season she received an A4 from 2005, but remained unsuccessful and did not collect any points until the end of the year. It was also inferior to most of the changing teammates such as ex-Formula 1 driver Nicolas Kiesa (2006) or Adam Carroll (2007).

Le Mans Series

Ickx at the Spa-Francorchamps 1000 km race in 2010

After retiring from the DTM at the end of the 2007 season, she was given a cockpit again in 2008 with Martin Short's Rollcentre Racing team. In the now renamed Le Mans Series , she started with different teammates in the 1000 km races in a Pescarolo 01 . She could not build on the performance of 2005, but still finished two of the five races in the top 10. She also won the 12-hour race of Spa in the Belgian touring car series. She finished the Zolder 24 Hours of the Belgian GT Championship with team colleague Alexandra van de Velde in fourth place overall.

Ickx at the Sachsenring 2011

Due to the financial difficulties and the withdrawal of Rollcentre from the Le Mans Series, Ickx also had to look for a new field of activity. At Creation Autosportif, for example, she was given the opportunity to start again in the Le Mans 24-hour race. She also competed in the VLN with a natural gas-powered VW Scirocco . She also started the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring in the same car , which she finished in 17th place overall and as the winner of her class. She was able to repeat this success in 2010, improving to 16th place in the overall ranking. In 2010, she signed with Signature-Plus in the Le Mans Series and now drove a closed Lola-Aston Martin LMP1 . While the team made up of Ickx, Franck Mailleux and Pierre Ragues was not successful in the championship races, in which the works teams from Peugeot, Audi and Aston Martin also took part, they finished the races against the firmly registered Le Mans Series teams in in the Algarve and on the Hungaroring on the podium in the most powerful prototype class. Since Ickx was also in the points in the other races, she ended the season as runner-up in the team and driver standings of the Le Mans Series.

For the 2011 season, Ickx switched to the FIA GT1 World Championship and drove a Ford GT together with Christoffer Nygaard .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2001	Paul Belmondo Racing	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	Vincent Vosse	Carl Rosenblad	failure	accident
2003	T2M motorsport	Porsche 996 GT3 RS	Patrick Bourdais	Roland Bervillé	Rank 27
2005	Rollcentre Racing	Dallara SP1	Martin Short	João Barbosa	Rank 16
2008	Rollcentre Racing	Pescarolo 01	Stéphan Grégoire	João Barbosa	Rank 11
2009	Creation Autosportif	Creation CA07	Jamie Campbell-Walter	Romain Iannetta	Rank 24
2010	Signature plus	Lola-Aston Martin LMP1	Pierre Ragues	Franck Mailleux	failure	accident
2011	Kronos Racing	Lola B09 / 60	Bas Leinders	Maxime Martin	Rank 7

Individual results in the DTM

season	team	Manufacturer	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	Points	rank
2006	Futurecom TME	Audi	HO1	LAU	OSC	BRH	NOR	ONLY	ZAN	BAR	LEM	HO2	0	-
			15th	16	18th	DNF	13	18th	DNF	DNF	16	11
2007	Futurecom TME	Audi	HO1	OSC	LAU	BRH	NOR	MUG	ZAN	ONLY	BAR	HO2	0	-
			15th	DNF	15th	17th	DNF	DNF	DNS	19th	13	18th

Web links

Commons : Vanina Ickx  - collection of images

• Vanina Ickx at Speedsport

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} 2005 Le Mans Endurance Series Yearbook . 2005, p. 53
2. ↑ Juha Päätalo: Vanina Ickx: I think it's pretty brave of myself to be here. Motorsport Magazin, April 8, 2006, accessed June 13, 2014 .