Chapter 2 Bentley and Le Mans

So you know the old good saying, all roads lead to Rome, for me it's all roads lead to Le Mans. Bentley and Le Mans go absolutely hand-in-hand. It's very special for all of us to get here once in two years and have the chance and raise the same roots like the Bentley boys did. The Bentley boys, Bentley boys and Bentley girls actually, you know, me as a female Bentley driver I always say they were also the Bentley girls. Absolutely fascinating group of enthusiasts, car enthusiasts back in time. They, you know, they were all coming, you know, after the first World War, World War I and they were all fighting there. The joy having finally, you know, not only freedom but, you know, the possibility to have fun and they did live it to full. They just loved, you and they had a need for speed, as we all do. They had this idea to come to Le Mans and they did incredibly well. They're literally written history, not only for Bentley, their written history for Le Mans. So something between partying, not sleeping at all, racing, you know, the spirit which they had is unique and that made them so well known and special and actually legendary. Besides Bentley boys, there were also Bentley girls. So I personally always admired, you know, Mary-Petra Bruce. She was just a fantastic and very, you know, adventurous lady. She just, you know, talked to Tim Birkin and said, could you please borrow me your car? Tim Birkin said, yeah, you can have my car and she did it. She did it really 24 hours solo in Brooklands, achieved amazing speed as average. It was, I think, almost 90 miles an hour in 24 hours on her own. I mean, something what is unthinkable these days. They were chasing records, you know, doing things in life which no one has done before. So yeah, that's Bentley girls and Bentley bells, maybe this is a part of it, the spirit which we wanted to, you know, which lives on. So we are a group of four girls and we teamed up in 2014 for a 24-hour race in Portimao in Portugal. It was a bit of a crazy plan because I never raced before. It was my very first race. My goals, three goals, never raced a Bentley before. So it gave us a lot. We love the race. We've done many races after that. We've done rallies after that together and the Bentley bells is still on the car. It's always fantastic to be asked goals and, you know, a little bit try to copy what the Bentley girls did in the 20s and 30s. Well, to be in a pre-war race, I personally think, you know, what is quite challenging because we have huge speed differences between the cars. We have really cars which are, you know, from period 1920 and the field is up to 1939 and considering 1939 the cars were pretty developed with synchronized gears, it's a huge difference. So we, you know, we have good battles. It's incredibly fast, especially here. The car loves fast corners, less the slow section corners. To change the gears in the right moment, it's a big deal because the speed which we carry here is pretty high, especially before turning. So slow down at the same time, change the gear and still turning then, you know, you have two hands, it's quite tricky. Once the car is going, it's very predictable, it's very fast and it's immense fun. So the car feels so well here in Le Mans on the circuit. We want to push, we want to bring some results. After a 45-minute race here, three times within 24 hours, don't fall asleep. It requires a work. The race has been cancelled in the middle of the night. It's pouring rain, it's getting worse right now. We all want to just stay safe.