By Alan Baldwin
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Simona de Silvestro has raced the Indianapolis 500 six times, tested a Formula One car and was the first woman to score points in all-electric Formula E but she has found new thrills in steering a sled down an icy track at the Olympics.
Although the Swiss-Italian has a long list of motor racing achievements to her name — including Indy 500 Rookie of the Year in 2010 and a stint in Australian V8 Supercars – representing Italy in monobob and two-woman bobsleigh at the Milano Cortina Games is a dream come true.
“I always felt so inspired by the athletes … and to think that I’m an Olympian is very special, especially after all the things I’ve been able to do in my career,” the 37-year-old Switzerland-born racer told Reuters after finishing 23rd in Monday’s monobob. “It’s incredible to be here.”
“(Motor) racing is not an Olympic sport so I just kind of went through the sports and I figured bobsleigh is maybe going to be the closest thing to achieve this dream,” she said of a journey that started three years ago.
“And yeah, it’s been a pretty crazy ride so far.”
FROM 650HP TO ‘JUST ME’
De Silvestro is not the first racing driver to compete at an Olympics in bobsleigh — the Spanish marquess and Formula One racer Alfonso de Portago also did in Cortina d’Ampezzo at the 1956 Olympics — but she is the first female to do both.
“I’m used to having 650 horsepower and all of a sudden it’s just me,” she said.
“I think that’s also the biggest challenge I’ve had to face. If you look at the start, I’m just missing a little bit too much and you just have to be so perfect in the run after that. It’s very difficult to make up this time, unfortunately.”
Any comparison to the Indianapolis Brickyard in May, with 300,000 spectators in the stands, might not be immediately evident on a freezing February evening with just a scattering of fans around the snaking track, but de Silvestro said the pressure of Olympic qualifying was not dissimilar.
“Indianapolis, you also have to qualify the car,” she said. “So you have this tension and we had this the whole year as a nation. You need to do well in the races, you need to qualify the sleds. So that was pretty nerve-wracking, pretty similar.
“And just putting all the pieces together (on a run) is pretty similar as an atmosphere as well.
“The Olympics, just the history behind it when you see the five (rings), it’s cool you know. It’s special. It’s a pinch myself moment.”
After the Games, de Silvestro has another target in her sights — the Le Mans 24 Hours sportscar race.
“Sometimes when fans come up and they have pictures of me in cars, I’m thinking ‘My God, I drove really a lot of things’,” she said. “But the one thing that is still missing is Le Mans. So that’s one that definitely has to go on the list.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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