Former Indy 500 star qualifies for Winter Olympics | Sports News

Former IndyAutomotive, Formula E, and Supercars driver, Simona De Silvestro, will make her Winter Olympics debut subsequent month after qualifying for Italy within the girls’s bobsleigh. The 37-year-old has an in depth motorsport resume, together with 71 IndyAutomotive races, six Indy 500s and one podium, Formula E with Andretti Autosport, and 91 Supercars races.

In 2014, De Silvestro additionally joined Sauber as an “affiliate driver” as half of a year-long coaching programme with the workforce. However, reported contractual points scuppered De Silvestro’s stint on the workforce, which has now totally been taken over by Audi Revolut forward of the 2026 F1 season.

In 2022, De Silvestro introduced that she had begun coaching within the winter sport of monobob, aiming to compete for Italy on the 2026 Winter Olympics. Her first aggressive occasion was the 2022 Swiss championships, the place she positioned fifth.

Now, she has taken one other vital step towards reaching her dream of representing Italy on the 2026 Winter Olympics. Though Swiss-born, De Silvestro will compete beneath her Italian household heritage in girls’s bobsleigh. She is slated to race in each the monobob and two-woman occasions, partnering with Giada Andreutti within the latter.

The Olympics will happen in her home nation, Italy, beginning on February 6-22. Speaking to Porsche, De Silvestro revealed she used to watch the Winter Olympics as a child.

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“I think it all comes down to the fact that I just love sport. When I was a kid, I used to watch the Olympics and I always felt inspired by the Games,” she mentioned in 2024. “And to be able to do that once in my lifetime would be amazing.

“So, sooner or later I began going via all of the Olympic sports activities to see which of them I might realistically participate in. That’s how I got here to bobsleigh, as a result of I really feel it is the closest factor to driving a race car.

“Three years ago, I finally decided to go for it 100 percent. I managed to find a way in, after a lot of awkward phone calls. Now I’m part of the Italian national team, trying to qualify for the Olympic Games.

“It’s a arduous dream to attain for sure, however I feel it is fairly uplifting when you’ve one thing fully new to attempt for. So far, it has been a enjoyable however difficult journey.”

De Silvestro outlined that many bobsleighers hail from track and field. Whereas she comes from a motorsport background, where you’re in control of the machine. “There’s undoubtedly a lot to study. The driving half of the bobsleigh makes a lot of sense to me as a result of I’m used to hurry,” she continued. “But I haven’t got an engine within the bobsleigh – I’m the engine. So that is the most important problem.

“Everyone who comes to bobsleighing usually comes from track and field. But the next step is to learn how to run and push the bobsleigh as fast as possible.

“Now I do a lot of explosive coaching, which you do not actually do in racing. It’s been fascinating. Quite a bit of my physique hurts most of the time. It’s a entire new world. Luckily, I’ve a lot of good people round me who know what they’re doing to make it attainable.”

On the differences between motorsport and bobsleigh, De Silvestro added: “It’s humorous as a result of I raced within the Indy 500 the place the highest pace is round 380km/h (236mph). But in bobsleigh, what’s spectacular is that you simply stand up there, and also you go from zero to full focus in seconds. In motorsport, you’ve the race that’s unfolding, and it is fairly long. Quite a bit of issues are occurring on the monitor.

“But in bobsleigh, it all comes down to a few short minutes, and getting everything out of that first push. If you make one tiny mistake, it can hurt quite badly. In one sense, with the speed, it’s comparable, but the way you approach bobsleigh compared to car racing is way different.”