Photo Credit: Motorsport.com
Leena Gade is Audi’s lead race engineer and she is the first female race engineer to win one of the greatest racing events in history, the Le Mans Endurance Race. Leena Gade first joined Audi Sports Car Team back in 2007 after gaining creditable experience collaborating with Formula BMW, A1GP and GT Racing. Within 4 years, Leena Gade was promoted to her current position of Race Engineer. By 2011, Leena Gade had led the Audi Race Team and their R18 TDi to success with their 2011 win of the 24-hour Le Mans Endurance Race.
“My recollection (of the win) is of pure relief that I made it through with the odd mistake but having believed it was possible. I turned around a team that a few months before looked incapable of making it through the first part of the weekend, let alone the race itself,” Leena Gade stated to Motorsport.com.
Leena Gade has since led her team of engineers, mechanics and drivers to win the 2012 Le Mans Endurance Race, the inaugural FIA WEC Drivers Championship and most recently of course, the 2014 Le Mans Endurance Race.
It wasn’t never easy for Leena Gade. She worked hard to be where she is today. “I was 12 when I knew I wanted to be an engineer, the same time that Teena my younger sister (who was nine at the time) knew as well. Two years later we both knew we wanted to be engineers in motorsport,” Leena Gade published in the Huffington Post.
Her and her sister sent applications to every motorsports team, in the U.K just to get their foot in the door. Leena Gade graduated from the university for Aerospace Engineering with Materials Science while working as a mechanic. It wasn’t until nearly 7 years after graduating from the university, that Leena was finally where she wanted to be –in motorsports.
“If this job was easy, everyone would do it, but it isn’t. Not many guys want it and even fewer girls do, but I hope that when I lead my team at any race, I show both that anyone, if they put their mind to it, can achieve so much in motor sport. It’s hard but worth every bit of the sweat and tears,” Leena Gade told Motorsport.com.
Great words of advice from Leena. I am sure we will see more of her in the very near future.
