Siri Lundqvist

Aurora **Siri Lundqvist** Selander (born 6 February 1994) is a Swedish professional racing driver, currently competing in the AT&T Champ Car World Series for Cherokee GP, driving the #96 car. Lundqvist is best known for her time in the Formula One World Championship, where she raced for Renault from 2014 to 2020 when she returned to Champ Car competition.

Lundqvist is considered to be one of the best Swedish racing drivers of all time, being the first Swedish driver to participate, and win races, in both Formula One, and Champ Car, since the 1980s. She is regarded as one of the more consistent drivers to compete in Champ Car, and has earned multiple nicknames, ranging from 'Super Swede' to 'The Professor'.

## Early Years

Lundqvist was born in Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, to Michael and Yvonne Lundqvist. As an only child, Lundqvist grew up largely surrounded by friends interested in traditional sports, which Lundqvist struggled with. Lundqvist was smaller than others her age, which made sports like basketball and football harder to play. It wasn't until she turned 7 that she stumbled upon auto racing as a sport, immediately falling in love with the sport and obsessing over it. Her parents, noticing her ambition and passion, paid for her to compete in the 2002 Swedish Karting Championships, in which Lundqvist won the season in the 100cc class. Several professional teams took notice of her, and with sponsors beginning to support her, she made the jump to professional karting for the 2003 year.

## Junior Categories

### Karting Championships: 2003-2006

Lundqvist entered the 2003 100cc European Karting Championship class, funded by local companies from Gothenburg who shared the local enthusiasm to have another potential Swedish racing star. No Swedish driver had broken into elite level series since the early 1980s, when Tobias Holmlund raced in Formula One for Lamborghini. Lundqvist, carrying a weight advantage due to her size, went unchecked, especially in weather-altered events, where she was blisteringly effective. Of the 30 races in the 2003 season, Lundqvist won 19 of them, an EKC record that has not yet been beaten as of 2021. With Lundqvist's performance, she was invited to the World Karting Championship for the 100cc Class in 2004, which she contended alongside her 125cc debut in the EKC. Lundqvist would mirror her 2003 performances into 2004, taking both the WKC 100cc title and the EKC 125cc title with race weekends to spare. Teams from around the globe had begun to show interest in Lundqvist, but were unable to sign her due to her still being below the age of 13. Lundqvist also stated her interest to climb the entire karting ladder up to superkarts during the 2004 offseason.

For 2005, Lundqvist raced in the WKC 125cc class, the WKC 150cc class, and the EKC 150cc class. Very few drivers had competed in more than one class in the WKC successfully, but Lundqvist managed to win in all three competitions, accumulating a total of 36 wins, and 79 podiums of a total of 90 races, to collect all three championships. After the season, Lundqvist announced she would be joining the North American open wheel ladder at the end of the 2006 karting season, having obtained a waiver from NAMRA to begin full time competition in 2007. In 2006, Lundqvist focused solely on the WKC Superkart class, which competed across 12 race weekends. Across the 24 races held, Lundqvist won 8 of them, and podiumed an additional 9 to take her final karting championship before moving across the Atlantic Ocean to pursue single seater racing.

## Champ Car history

### 2013 Season

Lundqvist made her Indycar World Championship debut during the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season, competing in the 2013 Firestone Triple Crown for the Tigersport team.

### 2020 Season

Lundqvist returned to Indycar World Championship competition after a deal was made between the Renault Sport F1 Team and Cherokee GP. Cherokee GP needed a replacement driver to fill the car once driven by Alicja Kowalkiewicz, while Renault Sport looked to alter its lineup for the rest of the 2020 F1 season. Lundqvist, who had voiced frustrations of the team's performance downturn, was offered a chance to the team she had left to join F1 to start with, and a deal was made, securing Lundqvist as a Champ Car driver until at least the end of the 2022 season.

Lundqvist took over the #96 car, which was powered by Alpine, a division of Renault, immediately at the next Champ Car event in Toronto, bringing the car home in 12th place while her new teammate, Keisha Fox, finished directly in front of her in 11th. Lundqvist would struggle to adapt to the bumpy street course of Belle Isle, finishing in 22nd, before scoring her first top 10 on her return to the series at Pocono, where she finished 9th. More difficult races would follow for Lundqvist. An 18th at Watkins Glen, followed by 22nd at Kentucky and a last place finish at Richmond, due to mechanical failures, did not dampen Lundqvist's positive outlook, with Lundqvist and Cherokee GP both assuring their supporters that the remainder of 2020 was a learning year for Lundqvist as she readjusted to the American open wheel racing style. After an 18th at Mid-Ohio, Lundqvist scored her best finish of the year at New Hampshire, where she finished fifth. Another 18th place finish followed at Road America, before her final top 10 finish of the year came at the Indianapolis road course, where she finished in 8th. At the season finale in Fontana, Lundqvist was taken out of the race early as part of a multi car accident triggered by the Cat Devil Racing driver Akira Sato. Lundqvist comtested 10 races of the 2020 season, scoring three top 10 finishes en route to finishing 27th in the final standings.

### 2022 Season

Lundqvist entered the 2022 season on a contract year, but favorably viewed by several teams in the Champ Car paddock. Cherokee GP team boss, Carmen Sienna, echoed her wishes to retain Lundqvist beyond 2022 in several off-season media interviews, confirming negotiations were ongoing.

## Personal Life

Lundqvist married Swedish composer Hans Selander on 19 January 2017 in Santorini, Greece, in a private ceremony. Lundqvist met Selander while Selander was attending the 2015 Indianapolis 500, and the couple began dating later that autumn, before becoming engaged over the weekend of the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix race weekend. Lundqvist has expressed wishes to step away to have kids at some point before she turned 35, which would occur in 2029, and has admitted the idea of having a family would likely spell her retirement as an open wheel driver.

Lundqvist is a fan of football teams D.C. United from Major League Soccer in the U.S., IFK Goteborg in the Allsvenskan in her native Sweden, and 1. FC Union Berlin in Bundesliga in Germany. Lundqvist is also a fan of rink bandy, a form of hockey that is a hybrid of ice hockey and field hockey. Lundqvist admitted in an interview in 2019 that she had broken two of her teeth playing the game while competing in F1, which required medical intervention.

Lundqvist has supported LGBTQIA+ rights since her first stint in the Indycar World Championship, but has been a vocal critic of American politics, calling out the nation's political parties as being "too conservative to be useful" on social media, and has made frequent remarks that she would not seek American citizenship while competing within the country as a full time driver. Lundqvist has voted as part of both the Swedish Left Party and the Swedish Social Democrat Party, idendifying as a socialist, while also clashing with radical feminists that compose parts of the Left Party.