Du Lon

Fan "Du" Lon (杜盧, née Souza, born as Fan Lei, 13 April 1996 in Golmud, China) is a Chinese racing driver who currently competes in the AutoReject World Series, driving for Best In The World Kahama Motor Sport. She also drove in the Italian F3 Championship and in Formula 2 for the Trueba Junior Team. She is the wife of AutoReject World Series race winner Kay Lon.

Early Life

Du Lon was born to policeman Hongkui Lei and housewife Lìwěi Lei. Her youth is not too well covered since Lon refuses to comment on most of it and official documents leave questions open. One of the few things known is that she did not have any interest in racing, an incident in her childhood caused the nickname "Du" to become ubiquitous to the point of virtually replacing her real given name and her parents moved to Tibet shortly before the turn of the millenium. Tragedy struck when Lìwěi Lei became the victim of a car accident in early 2008 and doctors were unable to save her life. Turning from bad to worse Hongkui Lei was killed during the 2008 Tibetan unrest a few months later, leaving her an orphan. By unknown means, a Portugese couple living in Lisbon managed to adopt her two years later but the earlier events left her scarred and therefore challenged to adapt to her new environment.

Early Career

In a fortunate turn of events she met Kay Lon who visited a musuem in the city. The German driver grew interested in her seeing as she presented total apathy to the German racing driver. After a short time, she warmed up to him and became willing to try her hands at racing. Her adoptive parents, happy to see her open up to her surroundings, invested a significant amount to enter her somewhat successfully in Portugese club races. Kay Lon understood her Chinese roots would be decisive in furthering her career by gaining sponsorship money, which is why he called China's attention on her by having her participate in the final race of China Touring Car Championship (with it being fused with the JTCC). She impressed with a fifth place in the 2000cc class. Experts argue Lon could have fared even better but chose to not get involved in the championship battle playing down in front of her.

F2RWRS Career

With one seat left open for the first season of the new feeder series, Kay Lon decided to help Du Lon to a contract with Trueba in order to raise RWRS awareness of her. While that worked, earning her a ARWS drive for later in the season, she was completely overwhelmed by the new challenge, being cleary beaten by her new team mate. After Scuderia Alitalia and Sammy Jones built a joint effort, there was no place for her on the team, leaving her unemployed. To stay sharp whilst not involved in open-wheel racing, Du Lon participated in the Malaysia Merdeka Endurance Race, where she finished third total driving a Porsche 996 GT3 together with Marc Cini and Adam Andretti, managing exactly 300 laps.

ARWS Career

Prospec (2014)

A few weeks after that, Gary Cameron announced he was going to retire from racing in order to focus on rebuilding Prospec. He announced that Du Lon would be driving for the team in the Asian rounds. Her debut was in wet conditions in Macao, where she proved terribly uncompetitive, drawing mockery from the paddock. Those voices were silenced, however, when she handily out-qualified Jean-Luc Schiller for the 2014 F1RWRS Chinese Grand Prix, becoming the at-the-time youngest ARWS Grand Prix starter, taking that title, ironically enough, from Kay Lon. On race day, she did very well, earning respect by doing battle with former F1 driver Phoenix McAllister before her retirement shortly before the last lap. After unsuccessful participation in the 2014 Luxembourg Grand Prix, Lei was demoted to test driver to make room for new drivers Fredo Mestolio and Kay Lon.

Kamaha (2015)

Before the 2015 F1RWRS Italian Grand Prix the Japanese team run by Barii Mori released American driver Nicolas Steele and hired Lon as a replacement. This deal was supposedly closely connected to Tomo Kazama's ARWS debut with the team next season. After failing to impress in her debut for the team (although completing her first full ARWS race distance), the managed second place in qualifying for the 2015 F1RWRS North Sea Grand Prix. She ran safely in the points until her car broke down shortly before the finish, showing her potential. Reliability issues plagues the rest of the 2015 season, resulting in her being unable to score a single point.

Simpson (2016)

Failing to find a seat for the start of the 2016 season, an opportunity arose to rejoin ARWS after Dave Simpson stepped down from active racing in order to allow a driver to bring additional funding to the struggling Australian team. Her debut race for the team, the 2016 British Grand Prix, ended with an accident that left her on the injury list for the following race. After her return to the seat, she failed to advance past pre-qualifying, helping Gulf Simpson Motorsports to sixth in the Pre-Qualifying Cup.

Euromotor International (2019)

After missing the 2018 season due to pregnancy, Lon returned to the renamed AutoReject World Series, signing a one-year contract with Euromotor International to join them for their debut season in the open-wheel series. The EU1 proved highly uncompetitive and the team only advanced from pre-qualifying once in the season, at the season finale in Macao. Despite the struggles, she generally proved superior to her teammate Takuma Taki.

Return to Kamaha (2020)

With Kay Lon becoming the majority stakeholder at Kamaha, he placed Du as active driver for the 2020 ARWS season, luring an attractive Chinese sponsorship package to the struggling historic team.

Personal Life

After the death of her parents, she was adopted by the Souza family who run a major lawyer firm in Portugal. While she is not very talkative, Kay Lon has reported she has sufficient knowledge of English. She married Kay Lon on December 28, 2017. On August 1, she gave birth to fraternal twins Jenny and Sammy Lon in Brunsbüttel.

Complete F2RWRS Results

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	DC	Pts
2014	Trueba Junior Team	TUR Ret	MON Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	AUT 11	GER 11	NED Ret	BEL	HUN	CZE	ITA	POR	ESP	CAN	USA	30th	0

Complete F1RWRS Results

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	DC	Pts
2014	Pemberton Prospec Racing	Prospec PRS 301	Lamborghini 3512	TAS	AUS	BRA	MEX	USA	MON	FRA	GBR	GER	BEL	ITA	MED	NSE	MAC DNPQ	CHN Ret	JPN DNQ	=26th	0
2015	Kamaha Motorsports	Kahama KM-6	Yamaha OX10A	TAS	AUS	MED	MON	MEX	USA	CAN	GBR	GER	BEL	AUS	ITA 11	NSE 14†	CHN Ret	JPN 13	BRA Ret	=26th	0
2016	Gulf Simpson Motorsports	GSM-020	Renault RSXXI-16	AUS	NSW	GBR Ret	ITA INJ	AUT DNPQ	CAN DNPQ	USS DNPQ	USN DNQ	GER DNPQ	NSE DNPQ	MON DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	MEX DNPQ	ARG DNPQ	CHN DNQ	JPN DNQ	42nd	0
2017	Sasol Equipe Gauthier	Gauthier G2.17	Pure-Hart PHRWRS-1-17	AUS	NSW	GBR	ITA Ret	AUT 6												18th	3
	Plus One Kingfisher Racing	Kingfisher KR-4B	Ford XR8C						CAN 16	USS DNPQ	USN 11	GER Ret	NSE Ret	BEL Ret	MON Ret	MOR 9	ARG Ret	JPN 5	CHN 13

• * Season in progress
• † Driver did not finish race, but was classified as they had completed 90% race distance.