Ayla Ågren is a Swedish/Norwegian driver, born in Norway who has done a lot of her racing in the USA.
She won the US F1600 championship in 2014 after taking three wins and five podium positions. This was her second season in F1600, having finished fourth in the series in 2013.
2013 was only her second season as a senior racer, having graduated from karting in Scandinavia at the end of 2011. Like many single-seater racers in the States, she began in the Skip Barber championships.
Between 2014 and 2019, she did not do quite as much active racing, but was involved with the Mazda Road to Indy training programme, in the hope of getting onto the oval racing ladder. To this end, she took part in the Cooper Tires USF2000 series, for three seasons. She did the full season in 2015 with Pelfrey Racing, who had helped her to her F1600 title. In her first season, she was tenth overall, with a best finish of sixth, achieved at Indianapolis and Mid-Ohio.
In 2016, she switched to John Cummiskey’s team and did three-quarters of the season, missing the Toronto and Laguna Seca races. Her best finish improved to fourth at Road America and she was eleventh overall. Back with Pelfrey for a third year, she only managed seven rounds on her budget. The best of these wasa seventh at Indianapolis.
She also worked as a spotter for Paretta Autosport and other teams in oval-based series, and drove the safety car for Indycar races.
In 2019, she attempted to qualify for the W Series but was unsuccessful at the first selection. Despite expressing some misgivings about the event, she tested again at the end of the year and was accepted for 2020. She was also awarded a significant scholarship by World Rally champion Petter Solberg.
The 2020 W Series season was deferred until 2021, but she took her seat and finished 17th overall. This was not helped by missing the Spa race due to a six-car qualifying crash, but her best finish was only ninth at Circuit of the Americas and she was not one of the drivers automatically invited back.
At the start of the season, she also drove at Duqueine prototype in the Le Mans Cup, finishing 19th in her class at Paul Ricard.
She continued as a reserve driver in W Series in 2022, making one appearance for the Puma team at Singapore, substituting for the injured Tereza Babickova. She was 16th. After W Series was cancelled, she did not race in 2023.
(Image from vg.no)