Saudi Merc team’s Le Mans aim
Saudi Arabia’s first female racing driver has set up a race team with the aim of eventually contesting the Le Mans 24 Hours. Reema Juffali, who cut her racing teeth in single-seaters in
Britain, has established Theeba
Motorsport for an assault on this year’s International GT Open series.
Juffali made the decision to set up the team, which is running a Mercedes-amg GT3 Evo out of premises in Banbury near Silverstone, after making her GT debut at the Dubai 24 Hours in January. The short timescale explained why she and her 2022 team-mate Adam Christodoulou raced an SPS Automotive-run Merc under the Theeba banner in the series opener at Estoril last month. But the new operation is now up and running as the pair look to follow up on two pro-am class victories in Portugal at Paul Ricard this weekend.
No timeline has been set for a Le Mans graduation by a team that, said Juffali, “came together in a few months”.
“Five years definitely, but depending how the team progresses, it could be three years,” explained Juffali, 30. That progress will include expanding to set up a base in the Middle East as part of a plan to encourage Saudis to participate in motorsport.
“The whole idea of the team is to bring Saudis along on the journey and give them a platform to learn and understand the sport,” she said. “Down the line we want to combine programmes so there is a Middle Eastern programme as well as an international or European one. We want to offer Saudis opportunities closer to home.”
Theeba is named after Juffali’s teenage nickname meaning ‘she wolf’ and is backed for the moment, she explained,
“by family and friends”.