Du Lei

Du Lei, officially known as Du Souza (born 13 April 1996 in Golmud, China) is a Chinese racing driver who currently competes in the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series, driving for Prospec. She also drove in the Italian F3 Championship and in F2RWRS for the Trueba Junior Team.

Early Life

Du Lei was born to policeman Hongkui Lei and housewife Lìwěi Lei. Her youth is not too well covered since Lei 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 and that her parents moved to Tibet during her childhood. Tragedy struck when Lìwěi Lei became the victim of a car accident in early 2008 and doctors failed despite their hardest efforts 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 did not respond to his advances at all. 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 buy her a seat in the Italian Formula 3 series supporting her by going to Italy themselves. It was obvious that her racing license was not too well-earned as she struggled to be competitive and did not finish higher than 15th in her four outings. However, in the first race of the season finale she scored the fastest lap of the race. 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). Lei impressed with a fifth place in the 2000cc class. Experts argue she 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, Lon decided to do a risky move, sending Lei out to work for Trueba in order to raise RWRS awareness of her. While that worked, earning her a F1RWRS 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 founded their new effort, there was no place for her on the team, leaving her unemployed. To stay sharp whilst not , Lon asked Du Lei to take part in the Malaysia Merdeka Endurance Race, where she finished fifth total driving a Porsche 996 GT3 together with Marc Cini and Adam Andretti, managing 299 laps.

F1RWRS Career

A few weeks before, Gary Cameron announced he was going to retire from racing in order to focus on rebuilding Prospec. He announced that Du Lei 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 F1RWRS paddock. Those voices were silenced, however, when she handily out-qualified Jean-Luc Schiller for the 2014 F1RWRS Chinese Grand Prix, becoming the youngest F1RWRS Grand Prix starter, taking that title amusingly 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.

Personal Life

After the death of her parents, she was adopted by the Souza family who run a significant lawyer firm in Portugal. While she is not very talkative, Kay Lon has reported she has a sufficient knowledge of English.

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	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	DC	Pts
2014	Pemberton Prospec Racing	TAS	AUS	BRA	MEX	USA	MON	FRA	GBR	GER	BEL	ITA	MED	NED	MAC DNPQ	CHN Ret	JPN DNQ	=26th	0

• * Season in progress