Aurora Straus
Breaking the mould
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 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
A passion for motorsports
Aurora’s first experience of driving was when she took the wheel aged 13. Her passion for motorsports grew rapidly and she took part in her first races at 15 years old. In 2017, she competed professionally for an entire season, in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. She ended the year as the best rookie in her category.
Aurora has been a partner of the watch brand since 2018, proudly wearing an RM 07-04 Automatic Sport.
‘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.’
Making a name
Aurora continues to make a name for herself in different fields. It’s a name which continues to imprint itself on her many ambitions for the future
‘I grew up in a stereotypically male-dominated sport, in an industry where I’m the ‘other’ rather than the ‘given’. I 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.’
Philanthropy
She started her own non-profit association ‘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.