Alicja Kowalkiewicz

Alicja Emelia Kowalkiewicz (born 6 February 1990) is a Polish professional racing driver, currently competing in the Microsoft IndyCar Series for Cherokee GP. She is best known for her time in the Champ Car World Series, where she won in her rookie season in 2017, as well as her infamous crash at the EuroSpeedway Lausitzring in 2020, where she was critically injured after her car flipped 38 times, an achievement recognized as a world record by Guiness.

Kowalkiewicz was the first, and is currently the only, driver to make an Indycar World Championship start, win an Indycar World Championship race, and start in the Indianapolis 500.

## Early Years

Kowalkiewicz was born in Katowice, in southern Poland, to Czeslaw and Martyna Kowalkiewicz. Czeslaw played football for the GKS Katowice team, while Martyna worked as a financier with a local banking institution. Kowalkiewicz became interested in auto racing at an early age after her parents brought her along for the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix. Her parents supported her interests to begin racing, and from the age of five began racing one off events in and around the Polish province of Silesian.

## Champ Car career

### 2017 Season

Kowalkiewicz was picked by Cherokee GP's team owner, Clayton Hardy, to share the #96 car with him for the 2017 Straight Talk IndyCar Series season. Hardy was scheduled to make five starts in the season as he began stepping away from the car to focus on managing the team and enter broadcasting. Kowalkiewicz took over for the other fifteen races, beginning with the Nikon Grand Prix of Australia at the legendary Surfer's Paradise street circuit. With Kowalkiewicz's start at Surfer's Paradise, she became the first Polish driver to make an Indycar World Championship start.

### 2020 Season

Kowalkiewicz entered the 2020 Champ Car season as the lead driver for the first time, with Behrris Windross moving to Formula One. Keisha Fox would replace him, making her debut for the series at the Grand Prix of Australia.

## IndyCar career

### 2022 Season

Kowalkiewicz announced in August of 2021 that she had been cleared to begin climbing back into a race car, over fourteen months after she had been critically injured in the accident at EuroSpeedway Lausitz. Her contract with Cherokee GP had been frozen, with the team insisting that they would put her back in one of their cars as soon as possible. It was later announced she would be the lead driver for the team as it entered the second tier IndyCar Series. She would be paired with Seth Smith, Jr, who would be leaving the family team of Swift Autosport to compete in the series. Smith, Jr. was also making the jump from stock car racing, having competed in the GTPlanet Fandom Series from 2020 to 2021.

## Active Records

Kowalkiewicz holds several records, some pertaining to her groundbreaking status as a Polish open wheel racing driver.

* First Polish driver to start an Indycar World Championship event.
* First Polish driver to win an Indycar World Championship event.
* Holds the record for most flips in an open wheel crash at 38.

## Trivia

* Kowalkiewicz shares a birthday with fellow Cherokee GP driver, Siri Lundqvist. Kowalkiewicz is three years older than Lundqvist, with Kowalkiewicz born in 1990, while Lundqvist was born in 1993.
* Many drivers from Eastern Europe have made appearances in the Indycar World Championship. However, Kowalkiewicz is the only one from Poland to do so. Most Polish racing drivers lean more towards rally racing or touring cars, which never played a role in Kowalkiewicz's upbringing.