Frenchwoman Elise Acker went to university to study mechanical engineering with one goal in mind – to join a race team.
“I don’t come from a racing family or anything like that. My dad watched a lot of motor racing but he never competed. I would watch it with him and decided when I was quite young I wanted to work in the industry.”
Acker is in New Zealand this summer as an engineer working on Kiwi Jamie Conroy’s car in the Toyota Racing Series.
“I’m the first in my family to work in motorsport. I like it because of the innovation that is happening all the time and I also like to travel, which means it’s the perfect environment to work in.”
On graduating with her degree, Acker asked for an internship at Sebastien Loeb’s World Endurance Racing team.
“I asked and they said yes. I first started on the tyres for a week and then I was a mechanic for a week and then I was on my computer looking at all the data.
“I was there for two months when I met Jonathan [Moury, one of M2 Racing’s team principals] at Silverstone.
“At the end he asked me if I wanted to come and work with his team in New Zealand in the TRS. Here I am engineering Jamie’s car working on getting the right setup, managing the tyres and helping the driver with the data and videos; everything really,” she said.
There’s no doubting Acker’s ability to get the best out of the car or driver. Rookie Conroy won in his fifth outing in a TRS at the second round of the series in Teretonga.
“It was really cool to get the win and I felt really proud of the job we did and Jamie did really well in the car,” she said.
Acker is now in her fourth year as a race engineer and is finding more and more women are making their way into motorsport as mechanics and engineers.
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Frenchwoman.
“In my second year in the sport I came across a colleague who didn’t really like having a woman in the team. He wasn’t very helpful and could be awkward at times.
“It was very frustrating but I just carried on and did my job the best I could. By the second year his attitude had changed for the better when he realised I knew what I was I doing.”
After the final round of the series at Manfeild this weekend, Acker and Moury are heading to GP2 team Russian Time to work on Artem Markelov’s car. It looks like Kiwi Mitch Evans may re-sign with the team as well.
