Nicole Liechti

Liechti's official 2023 Champ Car portrait

**Nicole** Sofia **Liechti** (born 24 August 1993) is a Swiss professional racing driver, currently competing in the Champ Car World Series for Red Bull Highlight Racing. Liechti is best known for her time in Formula 2, where she was the 2016 vice champion, as well as in Champ Car, where she is a two time race winner. Liechti is the daughter of 2001 Indycar World Champion, and current Highlight Racing team manager, Rita Liechti.

## Champ Car career

### 2021

The 2021 Champ Car season kicked off in style for Liechti. The first race of the season at Phillip Island resulted in an instant podium, with Liechti taking advantage of pit strategy bedlam to finish third behind Esther Hoffson, and Swiss compatriot, Simona Leroux. The race after in Motegi, Liechti finished sixth thanks to fuel mileage playing in her favor over others. The first difficult race for Liechti came at Richmond, where she could only manage 12th after an up and down race.

#### Injury and Recovery

During practice for the race at Texas, Liechti was involved in a serious four car accident. Liechti was hit by Kaylee Zappa, and sent into the outside wall, before sliding down the track in front of Natalia Kirichenko. Kirichenko hit Liechti at 168 miles per hour, sending Liechti flying towards the infield in turn 3. Liechti's car landed upside down on the roll bar behind Liechti's head, before flipping and coming to a rest right side up. Liechti was concussed in the accident, suffered six broken ribs, and a dislocated right shoulder that resulted in a partially torn right trapezoid ligament. Liechti declined surgery on the ligament until after the season ended, as surgery recovery would have taken 4-6 months. Instead, Liechti missed only Texas, the following race at Chicagoland, over half of the preparation time for that year's Indianapolis 500. Liechti would later completely tear the trapezoid ligament in her right shoulder at Belle Isle where she scored her second podium of the season. Liechti made it three podiums at Brno, finishing third yet again, with both Liechti and Black Rose Racing trying to mask the fact that Liechti had minimal use of her right arm, in particular on the road and street courses, where Liechti often had to go through corners with one hand on the steering wheel to avoid potentially tearing another ligament in the shoulder.

Liechti's Pocono race was uneventful, finishing 12th while others struggled with overheating tires. A fourth at Toronto pushed Liechti's physical limits, as she tried to handle the narrow street circuit. An eighth at Vancouver preceded two more back to back podiums, first at Kentucky, where she finished behind only the Team Impulse cars of Hazel Lacasse, and Sakura Ishibashi, and at Watkins Glen where she had won twice previously. Following Watkins Glen came a 17th at Road America, where Liechti scored pole position. In the race, Liechti began experiencing wheelspin exiting pit lane, with the wheel ripping out of her right hand before she could correct the car. Two DNFs followed, at Mid-Ohio, and New Hampshire, before Liechti finished 11th at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Liechti's final podium came at Denver, where she scored her second pole of the season. It was noted that Liechti could not get out of the car under her own strength, with the race requiring that much out of her. At Fontana for the season finale, Liechti's race was quiet until the final portion of the race, where she attempted to enter pit lane in front of Lucien Lachapelle, sending both into the wall and nearly collecting the race leader, Artyom Kozlov.

### 2022

Liechti was signed by Highlight Racing under a three year, USD$6 million contract beginning with the 2022 Champ Car season. This would mark the first time in Liechti's career that she would work with her mother, Rita, who operates Highlight Racing's U.S. operations.