Aurora Straus
If anyone breaks the mould, it’s Aurora Straus, the only professional female sportscar racer in North America. She even took a year off her sophomore at Harvard in 2018 in order to compete in the Pirelli World Challenge series. Not content at pushing limits and stereotypes in fast cars, she spends the rest of her time being a virituoso musician, an ardent campaigner and a precocious role model, with even bigger dreams for the future.
‘What I’ve slowly fallen in love with is my place in the motorsport's world as a woman. That’s not to say I’m treated any differently out on the track, but I think I’m in a unique position in the sense that I can reach out to an entire generation of young girls.’
Aurora Straus
Aurora drove for the first time at age 13, with no prior experience. Her passion for motorsports grew quickly, and she began wheel-to-wheel racing at the tender age of 15. In 2017, she made her full-season debut in professional racing in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, ultimately finishing the year as the top rookie in her class. She currently competes in the IMSA Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge.
A partner of the brand since 2018, Aurora wears the RM 07-01 in white ceramic with a jasper and diamond-set dial.
‘By wearing a Richard Mille watch, I know that whatever I do to it, it’ll be ok. It’s taken part in every one of my races, and is on my wrist every time I’m training, but so far, it hasn’t even been slightly compromised.’
Aurora is making a name for herself in different fields. It’s a name we might do well to note, judging by her ambitions for the future.
‘I’ve grown up in a stereotypically male-dominated sport, in an industry where I’m the ‘other’ rather than the ‘given’. I’ve learnt a lot from that. I feel that I’m on track. I’ve set myself up to go into government with expertise in several different fields. When the time comes, I’ll apply what I’ve learned outside the political world to the realm of politics, and we’ll see what happens.’
She started her own non-profit called ‘Girls with Drive’ to help foster awareness and excitement about male-dominated career paths among young girls. The more she can invest her time, money and energy into creating programs that will help young women want to get involved with those career paths, the better.