Move over Michael. Here comes a former Japanese race queen raring to become a ”racing” queen in the man’s, man’s world of formula one.
Keiko Ihara, who swapped the model’s leotard and make-up for a racing suit and helmet in 1999 at the age of 26, declares her goal to be Germany’s seven-time formula-one champion Michael Schumacher.
After six years of duelling with male drivers on lesser tours in Asia, Britain and France, she is revving up for the British formula-three series, which has produced such formula-one greats as Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen.
”I respect Michael Schumacher and always will. I dream of running on the same track with him but I don’t dare imagine myself overtaking him,” Ihara said ahead of her British Formula Three debut on April 2 at Donington Park.
”I am working to the limit in testing now, and my machine and myself have been improving each day,” the 31-year-old said by telephone from Marlow, where she is based with the Carlin Motorsports team.
”I am also building up my overall muscles, particularly in the neck, shoulders and around the backbone, to battle the rising G-force,” said the Tokyo native, who stands 166cm and weighs 56kg.
Her measurements are given as 86-63-88 by her Japanese agent.
”Of course, women are totally different from men in terms of physical strength,” Ihara admitted. ”I have also had difficulty many times on the mental side in a sense that motor sport still very much remains a man’s world.
”But I don’t feel any handicap in the team, being a woman or a Japanese.”
She added that she has seen courtesy from male colleagues.
”On test days, my teammates go outside the transporter which we share when I change my clothes. They are all kind enough,” she said.
Ihara has come a long way since she started as a model to finance her career as a competitive freestyle skier when she was still an economics student at Tokyo’s Hosei University.
On her first day on the track as a race queen, a model who promotes the high-octane sport, the sound of speed so enthralled her that she was inspired to learn how to drive and to become a racer one day.
After four years of saving money and finding sponsorship, she raced in the national Ferrari 355 championship in 1999. She competed in the British Formula Renault in 2000 and earned points when she took part full-time in the French Formula Three in 2001.
Both high and low points of her career came in 2002 when she could not race at home as Japanese sponsors pulled out amid the throes of recession.
It compelled her to make spot entries in the Asian Formula-2000 series and she won two races — becoming the first woman in the world to triumph in a formula-car race sanctioned by the International Automobile Federation.
Ihara finished third in the AF-2000 category of the 2002 Macau Grand Prix, the first woman to climb any podium in the event’s 50-year history.
In 2003, Ihara placed third overall in the Formula BMW Asian series. She competed as a regular on the national circuit last year before clinching a deal with Carlin for the 22-race formula-three season, sponsored by a Japanese cosmetics firm.
”We like breaking new ground and one day, there will be a successful female driver in formula one,” Carlin team boss Trevor Carlin said. ”Keiko is joining us to train herself for the higher formula, following in the footsteps of BAR driver Takuma Sato.”
Apart from Japanese Sato, who won the 2001 British Formula Three championship for Carlin, the team has launched into formula one such drivers as Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen and, most recently, India’s first formula-one racer, Narain Karthikeyan.
There have been several women drivers in formula one since the early years of the 55-year-old championship.
But their results have been limited, with only Italian Lella Lombardi posting a top-six finish in formula one — sixth at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix.
”In Britain, I feel close to formula one and have chances to see formula one tests, as well,” Ihara said. ”What I aim for now is to become the best formula-three rookie of the year. If I strictly do what I should do this year, I will have a chance to test for formula one.” — Sapa-AFP