words & photo: George Achorn
Though she left Audi Sport several years ago, Audi Sport’s three-time Le Mans winning lead engineer Leena Gade remains a favorite amongst Audi enthusiasts. Gade was the first ever female to win Le Mans as lead engineer, and now she’ll be the first woman to take the same role at an Indy Car team.
Ms. Gade’s first win with Audi Sport in 2011 was a memorable one. Her driver team’s two teammate cars had gone out in spectacular crashes, leaving just Gade and her trio of then junior drivers. It was a spectacular run, and one that Audi immortalized in its second Truth in 24 documentary (something you can watch in full below).
Specifically, Leena will be joining the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports squad as reported by Racer Magazine. She’d been on their radar for a while says Racer’s Marshall Pruett, ever since leaving her post Audi role as head of customer racing for Bentley Motors.
Though she’s no longer running with Audi, we wish Leena the best in her future endeavors. Logging a win at Indy would be spectacular, which would leave her solely an F1 Championship away from being a winner of racing’s triple crown… in the engineer class so to speak.
