Kian Sunstar

Kian Sunstar in 2023

**(Work in progress)**

**Kian Sunstar** (born 6 March 1999) is an Australian racing driver. She competes full-time in the Formula One World Championship, driving with the number 36 for McLaren. With a total of 64 wins and 50 pole positions, Sunstar is 3rd on the all-time wins list in the Supercars Championship. She has won the Bathurst 1000 three times, in 2016, 2020, and 2021.

Sunstar has expressed an interest in the Triple Crown of Motorsport, stating her intent to win a Formula 1 world championship, win the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula One, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the World Endurance Championship, and the Indianapolis 500 in the Indycar Series.

She is one of three drivers to have won all three major car racing events at Mount Panorama: the Bathurst 1000, Bathurst 6 Hour and Bathurst 12 Hour.

## Personal life

Kian Sunstar was born in Melbourne, Australia. Kian Sunstar's older brother, Elio Sunstar, served as her sibling's mechanic during Kian's early racing years in Australia. Michelle Sunstar, her mother, is a millionaire investor for private companies, their relationship is unknown as she has never been seen attending a race.

Kian debuted in Formula 1 in 2022 for Mclaren, alongside fellow rookie teammate Irish racing driver Eliza O'Connor. Having not gone the traditional single seater upbringing of F4, F3, and F2, Kian's signing was a bit controversial. Her skills were not called into question, by those who truly understood motorsport skill anyway, coming out of a Supercars championship as the winner but rather the decision to not defend their 3-year streak of championships in supercars, leaving for a European based series. The announcement came as a shock to everyone, her fellow drivers in supercars especially. When asked about their controversial move, Kian saw it as a non-bother issue, in an interview with autosport.com in response to a question asking if it was a 'matter of prestige leaving Supercars for f1' they stated, "*Mate. It's a matter of I've beaten all the drivers here 3 bloody times in a row! As much as I would enjoy beating everyone for another 3 years, I'd like some actual competition.*"

((The main reason Kian actually left because she had a massive crush on her rival Madison Webb and instead of confessing her feelings, she did the only reasonable thing and moved to the other side of the world in Europe and joined Formula One.))

Kian's father, Arnaldo, was a mechanic that had close friends in Supercars and motorsport in general. Kian's older brother, Elio, eventually took up an interest in karting. Elio had a dream to one day reach Formula 1 as any other karting kid, but a devastating crash would change his life for the better. Physically, Elio's injuries healed over time but mentally Elio could never bring himself to be in front of the wheel again, his father's horrified face burned into his mind. When Kian was born and also took up karting as he did, Elio was cautious and tried to gently push Kian to more safe career paths, but he could not argue with the fire in Kian's eyes. Arnaldo used his connections in motorsport to help Kian achieve her dream of driving cars, Elio found his true passion and went into engineering and became a mechanic like his dad.

##### Titles

As many drivers end up getting, Kian has a number of nicknames they have picked up over the years, from respected sports news sites and fellow drivers.

* "*Kleine Ster*" meaning 'little star' in Dutch, is a nickname given to Kian by fellow Formula 1 driver Alexi.
* '*Blazing Sun of Australia*' was a nickname that has a mixed history of why it originally started, a tug of war of what came first. A reference commonly used is popular Australian Christmas Song, 'Six White Boomers' by Rolf Harris, more specifically the lyric 'Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun' that Kian has been caught singing on radio a couple times. Another reference is an article writer within F1 just making it up on the spot with the Sunstar surname.
* '*The Trailblazer of Australian Motorsport*' or just '*The Trailblazer*', is a name Kian picked up for their unusual career path, leaving the Supercars Championship, a series most Australian drivers stick to, in search for more glory in racing series around the world. It's both used in a negative and a positive light.

## Junior career

### Australian Formula Ford

In 2015, Kian Sunstar was supposedly supposed to race in Australia Formula 4 but because the timetable with the Australian GT Championship, Sunstar raced in the lower Australian Formula Ford Series as the timetable fit with the GT calendar. This cemented their path into supercars as apposed to single seater racing. Sunstar finished 3rd in the first race of the first round at the Sandown Raceway but went on to win all remaining 17 races of the 6 rounds. Finishing with 306 points, Sunstar won the series with a comfortable 38 point lead in front of 2nd place.

## Supercars Championship

##### 2016

In 2016 Sunstar made her Supercars Championship debut with Tekno Racing after impressing the team with her junior career results in the Australian Formula Ford series and the Australian GT Championship in 2015. Sunstar showed instantly that the team were right to place their trust in her as she achieved the team's first Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 hour win alongside driver Madison Webb. This would be the height of the success Sunstar would achieve with the declining Tekno Racing team. Despite winning the 2 infamous Bathurst events, horrid reliability would see Sunstar finish 6th in the standings.

##### 2018

By the end of the 2018 season, Kian Sunstar announced her move from Tekno Racing to the infamous Triple Eight Race Engineering, also known as Ampol RedBull Racing. The move was a mutual agreement between Sunstar and Tekno Racing, wanting to see their driver show off her true potential, what the team could not provide. Tekno Racing would race their race last race in 2021, Kian Sunstar's last season in Supercars also. The dissolved team would prove to be of use once more though as a connection between McLaren and Sunstar, some officals having moved to the other series McLaren raced in, namely Formula One.

##### 2019

Kian debuts with the Triple Eight Race Engineering team

## GT Racing

    In 2015 she entered the Blancpain Endurance Series in a McLaren 650S GT3 run by Von Ryan Racing. Racing in conjunction with her V8 Supercars commitments, she was forced to miss one round due to a date clash, however achieved two victories in the four races she entered. The team was dissolved after the 2015 season, and for the 2016 season, Sunstar moved to McLaren's new Garage 59 team. She will once again miss the final round of the championship at the Nürburgring in Germany due to the Sandown 500 V8 Supercar race being held on the same weekend. Sunstar won the 2016 season with Côme Ledogar and Rob Bell having won the 3 Hours of Monza and the 1000 km Paul Ricard despite skipping the last round at the Nürburgring due to a clash with his Supercars Championship commitments.

Through her McLaren and Tekno Autosports connections, she drove one of Tekno's factory-supported McLaren 650S GT3s at the 2016 Bathurst 12 Hour. In qualifying on Saturday, Sunstar set the fastest ever officially recorded lap of the Mount Panorama Circuit to achieve pole position. She went on to set the fastest ever race lap on the way to securing victory alongside Álvaro Costa and Madison Webb.

## Endurance Racing

#### Bathurst 1000

##### 2016

Regarded as Kian Sunstar's greatest win, the 2016 Bathurst 1000 was an intense race.

#### World Endurance Championship

With McLaren's bid to return to the Le Mans 24 Hours as part of an attack on the World Endurance Championship’s new LMGT3 class with United Autosports next season, Kian Sunstar has expressed interest and excitement to be one of the drivers to compete for the team. With Sunstar's history of GT racing in McLaren cars, it is likely Sunstar will be a driver announced to drive in Le Mans with McLaren and United Autosports.

## Formula One

Having previous connections with McLaren as she had drove their cars in GT racing championships in partnership with Tekno Racing with which she has good relations with, Kian had contacted the Formula 1 team in July 2021 after wining the Townsville 500. With contract discussions going on until November, the decision to sign the reigning Supercars Champion for the 2022 Formula 1 season was decided upon on November 2nd 2021. Kian announced her retirement from supercars in the final round at the Gold Coast Street Circuit, December 2021.

There were discussions of joining RedBull Racing, having won her 2019, 2020, and 2021 Supercars championship titles with the Ampol RedBull Racing team, but with the team having been filled up and not wanting to stay on the sidelines for however many years she would have to wait for an opening at RedBull, Sunstar ultimately decided to go with McLaren.

### McLaren (2022–present)

#### 2022 season

Kian Sunstar debut season in Formula One with Mclaren, alongside fellow rookie Eliza O'Connor.

## Relationships

Feel free to add to this! There's not much here with other characters bc I dont want to overstep Bo]

Other's OCs

My other OC's

 Dustin Moore | Positive
 Elio Sunstar
 Mackenzie Cooper | Very Positive
 Madison Webb
 Michelle Sunstar