This weekend, at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands, driver Valérie Chiasson, originally from Repentigny in Québec and current resident of Luxembourg, contested her third event in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Benelux series.
For the only female driver entered, this was a race full of emotion, highlighted by great battles with her direct competitors. In the end, Valérie finished fourteenth overall and tenth in B Class.
The final result earned this weekend in Zandvoort does not reflect the true progression Valérie Chiasson has accomplished since her European series debut last May. The driver of the DVB Racing Porsche GT3 Cup commented : "in motorsports, we sometimes live things that are a little bizarre. Sometimes you finish amongst the leaders without having to fight hard for it, and other times, you battle for the entire duration of the race and you give your maximum effort from the first turn until the last, but the final standings don’t reflect that. That’s pretty much what happened in the race at Zandvoort" she explained.
Qualifying, in the rain, in eleventh spot overall and seventh in B Class, Valérie Chiasson missed her race start, immediately losing two positions. "I have to admit that this has not happened to me often. I generally end up gaining spots at the start, but this time, I simply just missed it! I set out to win back those places and the battle with three other drivers began. It lasted the entire half hour duration of the race, right up until the checkered flag, or a little bit sooner, in my case!" commented Valérie.
After incessant passing between the four drivers, Valérie Chiasson was successful in gaining one position, which she lost again on the very last lap because she thought that the race ended a lap earlier, so she slowed down and lost a place in the last lap. "When I qualified in eleventh, I was really hoping to finish in the Top 10, but even if that didn’t take place, the battle I had with the three other drivers was really intense. There were no incidents, the driving was really clean, and we ended up changing positions at least ten times. It’s kind of a perfect race for me and I’m therefore learning a lot" confided Valérie Chiasson, who is also the Canadian representative for the FIA "Women in Motorsport" Commission, which encourages the participation of women in motorsport.
The only negative thing from the weekend took place near the end of the race when the Canadian driver started feeling a sharp pain in her elbow. "At the end, it hurt when I tried to turn the steering wheel to the right. I’m having some medical tests today and I’m afraid they’ll find a torn muscle in my arm" she said.
Valérie will have plenty of time to bounce back from this as the next event of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Benelux won’t take place until mid-September on the Zolder circuit, in Belgium.
As the very first female driver to obtain an overall podium finish at the Giles-Villeneuve circuit in Montreal (Coupe Nissan 2015) as well as the lone female driver to contest the 2016 Grand Prix du Canada (Canadian Porsche GT3 ), Valérie Chiasson is taking on a new challenge this year; as she contests the well-known European Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Benelux, as well as having competed in the Canadian Porsche GT3 Cup last month as part of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, finishing in the Top 10 overall and twice second place in the Gold class.
Valérie Chiasson’s participation in this season’s Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Benelux is in partnership with DVB Racing, EVO Information Systeme et VB Energy.
