Alex Lloyd (racing driver)

This article is about the motor racing driver. For the Australian singer-songwriter, see Alex Lloyd. For the American football player, see Alex Loyd.

Alex Lloyd
Lloyd at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 2010.
Nationality	British
Born	Alex Stewart Lloyd (1984-12-28) 28 December 1984 Manchester, England, U.K.
IndyCar Series career
Debut season	2008
Current team	None
Racing licence	FIA Gold
Years active	4
Car number	16,19,99,40202
Former teams	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing Sam Schmidt Motorsports Rahal Letterman Racing Dale Coyne Racing
Starts	27
Wins	0
Poles	0
Best finish	16th in 2010
Previous series
2006–2007 2004 2002–2003	Indy Pro Series Euro Formula 3000 Formula Renault 2.0 UK
Championship titles
2007	Indy Pro Series
Awards
2010 2003	IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year McLaren Autosport Award

Alex Stewart Lloyd (born December 28, 1984) is a former British motor racing driver. Lloyd struggled with funding throughout his career, but went on to win the 2007 Indy Lights Championship and finished fourth in the 2010 Indianapolis 500. He was known by the nickname "Pink Lloyd."

Junior racing career

Lloyd was born in Manchester, England. At the age of nine, he began kart racing in the British Super One Championship and the European championship. In 1999, at age 14, he became the British Open Champion in kart racing. In 2000, he began testing Formula Ford cars.

In 2001, he moved into Formula Ford racing, placing second at a European Championship round at Spa-Francorchamps. He also finished in 13th place in the prestigious Formula Ford Festival. During the winter, he raced in the Formula Renault UK Winter Series, placing third in the championship. He graduated to the main Formula Renault series in 2002, finishing ninth in the championship.

During 2003 Lloyd earned the BRCD McLaren Autosport Young Driver of the Year award. This followed a second place finish in the Formula Renault UK championship behind Lewis Hamilton and ahead of James Rossiter and Mike Conway.

Formula One and IndyCar

In 2004, Lloyd conducted his first Formula One test in a McLaren as part of his prize for winning the Young Driver of the Year award the previous year. He was unable to compete in British Formula 3 as planned, due to funding problems. However, he carried out several tests with Alan Docking Racing and teammate Will Power. He took part in the final seven rounds of the Euro Formula 3000 series, recording one win and three pole positions.

Lloyd continued to struggle to find financial backing in 2005, only taking in 2 races in Italian Formula 3000 for the in order to help with car development and a one-off ride in a Formula Renault 3.5 Series event at Monaco. For the winter of 2005–06 he was signed up to drive in A1 Grand Prix for Team Great Britain, however he only undertook one mid-season drive and was never able to race the car, with the GB team opting to give veteran driver Robbie Kerr greater opportunities.

Move to the United States

For the 2006 season, Lloyd signed with AFS Racing partway through the year to race the remainder of the whole season in the Indy Pro Series. As a last attempt at providing finance for Lloyd's career, his parents sold their house in Port Soderick in the Isle of Man. Lloyd subsequently qualified second for his first race with the team at St. Petersburg and finished his second race that weekend in third place. In July, he won the road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway the day before the United States Grand Prix, the first race ever won by AFS Racing. Later in the season he won the Valley of the Moon 100 for AFS Racing, held at Infineon Raceway, and went on to finish seventh in the final standings.

For the 2007 IPS season, he drove for Sam Schmidt Motorsports and promptly won the first five races of the season. He clinched the series championship with his eighth win of the season at Infineon Raceway with two races remaining in the season. During the season he shattered all league records for consecutive wins (5), wins in a season (8), career wins (10) and most points scored (652). He became the first person ever to have won on both the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and also the famous two and a half-mile oval itself, until Will Power did the same in the Indycar series in 2018.

Lloyd practising for the 2008 Indy 500

On the basis of this dominating performance, and following an Indycar test, on 17 October 2007, Lloyd was signed as a driver in Chip Ganassi Racing's driver development program. Unable to raise sufficient funds for a full drive with the team in 2008, he participated in a limited schedule including the IndyCar Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype races and limited IndyCar testing.

On 10 April 2008, it was announced that Chip Ganassi Racing and Rahal Letterman Racing would work together to field an entry for Lloyd, for the 2008 Indianapolis 500 on 25 May 2008. Lloyd was fastest in the rookie tests, but only qualified in 19th place, after having been briefly hospitalized following a heavy accident at 223 mph (359 km/h). Towards the end of the race he crashed heavily, sliding down the pit road and across several teams' pit bays, all of which were empty.

Lloyd driving in the 2009 Indy 500

Still without the finance for a full-time drive, Lloyd returned to the 2009 Indianapolis 500, racing for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in partnership with Ganassi. Lloyd was sponsored by HER Energy Drink and wore a hot pink firesuit for the entire month to match his car's distinctive colour scheme. This led to Lloyd being given the nickname "Pink Lloyd", after the band Pink Floyd, one of his favorite bands. With five minutes remaining on Pole Day, Lloyd was able to qualify the car in the 11th position to qualify for his second 500. Lloyd finished 13th after losing a lap early in the race when the car's rear signal light was seen to be broken and Lloyd's car had to pit for the offending light to be replaced.

In 2010 Lloyd teamed with Dale Coyne Racing to drive the number 19 car sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America. He finished fourth for the team in the 2010 Indianapolis 500, his best performance to date in an IndyCar race. Lloyd would also win the Firestone tire-ific Move of the Race for his performance at Texas, and finished the year as the best of all rookies, thereby winning the Rookie of the Year award.

Still without funding, Lloyd started 2011 without a full-time drive. However, leading up to the 2011 Indianapolis 500 he was signed again by Dale Coyne's race team, to run not only the 500 but all oval races on the 2011 IndyCar Series schedule, as a counterpart to Sebastian Bourdais (who contested all of the road & street courses).

In 2014, Lloyd competed in three races in the Pirelli World Challenge GT class, driving a 2006 Corvette Z06 for CRP Racing. He also won a one-off rally in the B-Spec class at Rally America's Lake Superior Performance Rally (LSPR). On 7 December, Lloyd was victorious in the 2014 25 Hours of Thunderhill endurance race with Davidson Racing, sharing the wheel with Randy Pobst, Kyle Marcelli and Brian Frisselle. The four drove a BMW-powered Norma, becoming the first team in history to win the event in a machine from the "sports racer" ESR class.

Other ventures

Since 2012, Lloyd has reviewed production cars for outlets including Jalopnik, Automobile Magazine, Road & Track and Yahoo Autos. He was employed by Yahoo! as the Editor-at-Large of Yahoo Autos.

Personal life

Lloyd and his wife Samantha live in California with their four children. Their second daughter, Bethany, was due to be born on May 24, 2009, the same day Lloyd was scheduled to race in the Indianapolis 500, generating significant media attention.

Motorsports career results

American open–wheel racing results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Indy Lights

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Rank	Points
2006	AFS Racing	HMS	STP1 10	STP2 3	INDY 5	WGL 17	IMS 1	NSH DNS	MIL	KTY 16	SNM1 2	SNM2 1	CHI 4					7th	294
2007	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	HMS 1	STP1 1	STP2 1	INDY 1	MIL 1	IMS1 2	IMS2 2	IOW 1	WGL1 3	WGL2 1	NSH 11	MDO 22	KTY 2	SNM1 1	SNM2 DNS	CHI 2	1st	652

IndyCar

Year	Team	Chassis	No.	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points	Ref
2008	Rahal Letterman Racing Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara IR-05	16	Honda HI7R V8	HMS	STP	MOT1	LBH1	KAN	INDY 25	MIL	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	NSH	MDO	EDM	KTY	SNM	DET	CHI	SRF2	38th	10
2009	Sam Schmidt Motorsports Chip Ganassi Racing		99		STP	LBH	KAN	INDY 13	MIL	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	TOR	EDM	KTY	MDO	SNM	CHI	MOT				30th	41
	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing		40202																		HMS 8
2010	Dale Coyne Racing		19		SAO 18	STP 23	ALA 23	LBH 19	KAN 19	INDY 4	TXS 8	IOW 13	WGL 25	TOR 23	EDM 18	MDO 13	SNM 10	CHI 21	KTY 13	MOT 21	HMS 12			16th	266
2011					STP	ALA	LBH	SAO	INDY 19	TXS1 14	TXS2 24	MIL 22	IOW 13	TOR	EDM	MDO	NHM 13	SNM	BAL	MOT	KTY 26	LVS3 C		27th	85

¹ Run on same day.

² Non-points race.

³ The Las Vegas Indy 300 was abandoned after Dan Wheldon died from injuries sustained in a 15-car crash on lap 11.

Years	Teams	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships
4	4	27	0	0	0	4	0	0

Indianapolis 500

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team	Note
2008	Dallara	Honda	19	25	Rahal	Retired (contact)
2009	Dallara	Honda	11	13	Schmidt	Completed every lap
2010	Dallara	Honda	26	4	Coyne	Completed every lap
2011	Dallara	Honda	30	19	Coyne	198 laps completed

Pirelli World Challenge

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
2014	CRP Racing	STP	LBH	BAR 1	BAR 2	DET 1	DET 2	ROA 1	ROA 2	TOR 1	TOR 2	MDO 1 11	MDO 2 22	SNM 1 DNS	SNM 2 17	UTA 1 14	UTA 2 22