Riley Griffith

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Riley Griffith (born 2nd of January, 2002 in Minnesota, United States) is an American driver currently driving for Prema Powerteam in the 2019 F3 season.

Early Life and Career

Riley Griffith was born in Minnesota to a middle-class family. Since she was a kid, she had a big interest in motorsports because of her uncle, Shad Griffith, a racing driver during the 90s and 00s. At the end of 2007, once Shad Griffith retired, he, alongside his brother Nicholas, decided to help Riley on his venture in motor racing. In 2008, she builted a reputation on minor kart championships. During 2013 she moved to San Francisco, in order to have a bigger reach to her uncle, and to have closer sponsorship relations. During 2009-2014, she won a string of regional championships, and, on 2015, she was given the opportunity to participate on the Rotax Max Challenge. Taking the offer, she was an outsider contender to the title, unti a late resurgance on the final races proved spot-on to overtake her rivals on the championship. On 2016, she entered the World Kart Championship, winning it. On 2017, she started off her career in US F2000 with Cape Motorsports. Despite having a hard time getting used to the grips of this new car, she eventually got the hang of it and managed to beat off her rivals at the end of the year, thus winning the championship.

Venture on GBRC, IPC and RSTC

After a few talks, Riley secured minor baking to do minor appearences in the first race of the newly formed RSTC, finished in a 11th place, scoring 2 points. After that, she decided to GBRC to keep her career afloat, securing a drive with the KQ Motor Sports team. Riley started things off at FroettmaRing, scoring two 2nds place and a surprising win. She decided to skip Sweden to get more used to the car. In the meantime, she was invited to some one-offs in IPC with various outfits, and with medium sucess, scoring a top 10 finish at her debut in the Quincy round. That extra time paid off for Riley, as she went onto winning the A-Final in Finland. She got a call to drive for AR2.0 with Venturi in the French, British and Hungarian rounds. While the debut didn't went as expected as she struggled to get the grips of the new car, in Great Britain she had a lot of pace, qualifying 10th, running 7th in the Feature race until she crashed out like many people did, and starting from 17th in the Sprint race, she climbed up to 8th in order to claim her first point in a European open-wheel series.

Personal Life

Riley currently lives in San Francisco, alongside her father Nicholas and her mother Jill. Nicholas currently works in the tech world, while Jill is a doctor. She has a love for ice hockey and plays it in her spare time.

Career Summary

Year Series Team Position
2015 Rotax Max Challenge Independent 1st
2016 Kart World Championship Independent 1st
2017 US F2000 Cape Motorsports 1st
2018 SEAT Leon Supercopa Scuderia Vittore NC
IPC B-Class Valerian Juniors/Globex Scorpio Juniors 31st
GBRC KQ Motor Sports 8th
FIA Prototype Challenge Valerian Motorsport 11th
2019 FIA Formula 3 Prema Powerteam 6th