Keiko Ihara | |
---|---|
Nationality | Japanese |
Born | Tokyo, Japan | July 4, 1973
FIA World Endurance Championship career | |
Debut season | 2012 |
Current team | Larbre Compétition |
Racing licence | FIA Bronze |
Car number | 50 |
Starts | 2 |
Wins | 0 |
Poles | 0 |
Fastest laps | 0 |
Previous series | |
2009 2008 2005-06 2005 2004 2003 2003 2002 2001 2000 | Formula Le Mans Cup Aston Martin Asia Cup British Formula Three Masters of Formula 3 Le Mans Endurance Series Super GT Formula BMW Asia Asia Formula 2000 French Formula Three Formula Renault 2.0 UK |
Keiko Ihara (井原 慶子, Ihara Keiko) (born July 4, 1973) is a Japanese race car driver. She was a former race queen, a model who appears in a swimsuit or other fashionable apparel at race circuits, before deciding to become a racing driver. She is one of the few Japanese women nationals to race internationally at a high level. Her best finishes in the British Formula Three Championship are two 8th places finishes in 2005, which helped her to a final championship standing position of 16th with 12 points. In the 2006 series, she finished in 17th and last position in the Championship Class, with 4 points.
Ihara joined the Gulf Racing Middle East to compete at the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LMP2 class with Jean-Denis Délétraz and Fabien Giroix as codrivers. In 2013, she raced two rounds for Gulf Racing Middle East and four with OAK Racing, both in the LMP2 class. The driver won the Fuji round of the 2014 Asian Le Mans Series for Oak Racing, together with Ho-Pin Tung and David Cheng.