Aimée Gauthier

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Aimée Gauthier
Nationality Flag of France svg.png French
Born January 17th 2001
Toulon, Var, France
DEC Holder Salamander
Current Team Flag of the United Kingdom svg.png Rich Energy Racing Point ARWS Team
Car Number 8
Former Teams Flag of Austria svg.png Union Saver Developments
Races 3
Championships 0
Victories 0
Podiums 0
Points 3
Pole Positions 0
Fastest Laps 0
First Race 2019 Chinese Grand Prix
First Victory N/A
Last Victory N/A
Last Race 2020 New South Wales Grand Prix
Best Finish 7th (2020)


Aimée Gauthier (born January 17th, 2001 in Toulon, France) is a French racing driver, and the granddaughter of former Formula 1 driver and Equipe Gauthier team boss Guillaume Gauthier. She is known for winning the 2016-17 Formula Nippon championship.

Early Life

Aimée's early years were spent in close proximity to cars. Her family owns one of the biggest garage chain in southern France, and her grandfather Guillaume was one of the country's many Formula 1 stars in the late 70's and early 80's, on top of owning a racing team. When he was not busy running his team, Guillaume would regale Aimée with tales of his racing exploits, and from an early age she knew she wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Aimée was also privilege to one of the best educations money could buy, as her family had become very affluent in the wake of both Guillaume's Grand Prix success and the boom in business for Garages Automobiles Gauthier, in which Aimée's mother attained a rather high rank.

Junior Career

Karting (2009-2015)

Her father, Arnaud, was more interested in the technical aspects of motor racing as opposed to actually racing, but when Aimée turned 8, he surprised her with her very own kart with which to begin her racing career. At this stage, Arnaud was making a name for himself as an engineer within Equipe Gauthier, but was able to spare enough time to maintain the kart. Very quickly Aimée began crushing all opposition she came across, and by the time she was 10, Guillaume had seen fit to give her full backing from Equipe Gauthier, allowing her to compete on a national level. By the end of 2012, she was French Under-13 Karting Champion at the age of 11. A year later she earned the European title. Aimée then won the European Under-15 Karting Championship, and began looking for a way into single-seaters, eventually settling on the F1 Rejects Development Series.

2016

Equipe Gauthier did not run a F1RDS team, so Aimée had to rely on finding another team to accept her. Thanks to her karting results, this was not too difficult, and found a home with Jules Connes' Écurie Prenois outfit. Her debut season in car racing went exceptionally well, taking 3 podiums in the Winter Cup, finishing 2nd in the standings there, before following this up with 6 more in the series proper, again finishing 2nd in the championship. Although she only won once all year in the F1RDS, her consistency and reliability were exceptional for a driver of her youth, finishing outside the points only 4 times, and not once retiring. In both the Winter Cup and the main series, the only driver to best her in the final standings was Estonian Anu Võsu, a driver 5 years her senior.

When Écurie Prenois was granted a second car for the second half of the IFRC, Gauthier was called on to perform double duty in both that series. While she struggled to stand out against the must tougher opposition in more powerful machinery, she did outpace her teammate Mathilde Thybes. However, her competition in the series came to an abrupt end after an avoidable collision with Renato Bulku saw the Albanian driver injured for the rest of the season, and Gauthier herself banned for her part in it.

2017

Despite the ban, her performances had sufficiently impressed the racing world at large, and Gauthier was offered a seat in the 2016-17 Formula Nippon season by Noritake Terada Racing. In far more powerful machinery than she was used to, Gauthier still found herself a regular threat for wins and podiums - winning in only her second start at Okayama and taking 4 pole positions and 2 other podium results on her way to winning the 8-race championship - despite 3 retirements due to car failures and crashes that were out of her control.

Although initially it looked as if Gauthier would remain in the F1RDS for another season to continue her development, her aptitude in the very powerful Formula Nippon cars made it clear she was ready to handle more powerful machinery. The decision was made to move her to F3RWRS for the 2017 season, as the move up to full AutoReject 3.5 was deemed to big a step for her after her partial IFRC campaign. Although Equipe Gauthier did run an F3RWRS team, it was determined that she would have the best chance of winning elsewhere, and so signed with Atlantean Voeckler Junior. Ironically, in the truncated season, Gauthier driver Rick Simpson was one of the few drivers to beat her, as Gauthier took 2 podiums and placed 5th in the standings.

2018

With the collapse of F3RWRS, Gauthier focused her attention back on Formula Nippon, as she planned to defend her crown in an expanded 18-race schedule. Remaining with Noritake Terada Racing, Gauthier opened the season with 2 wins and 2 3rd place finishes in the first 5 races, but a frustrating string of 10 races with 6 retirements and only 1 points finish saw her trailing in the latter stages of the season. It was ultimately enough to allow ARWS veteran Barii Mori to hang on and win the championship by 20 points from Gauthier, though her marks of 4 wins, 7 poles, and 2 fastest laps left little question as to who the quickest driver in the series was.

Following this, Gauthier chose to return to AR3.5 to continue progressing her career - remaining with the Voeckler organisation for the 2018 season. After few disappointing results in the opening rounds of the championship, Gauthier scored points in every race following her pole position in her heat race at the British round, up until crashing out in her heat race at the Japanese round. Though she didn't win, a total of 5 podium finishes saw her climb up to 10th in the final standings.

By this stage, however, Equipe Gauthier had closed up as an organisation due to many outstanding debts and the return of her grandfather's depression. While the skill she had displayed behind the wheel up to this point meant continuing her career was not in jeopardy, it did mean that she had lost a lot of the support structure she had relied heavily upon up to that point.

2019

Looking to challenge for the title in AR3.5 in 2019, Gauthier moved back to the familiar environment of Écurie Prenois, the reigning Teams Champions. Although she opened the season strongly with 3 consecutive podiums, and won 3 races later in the season, she did not finish on the podium otherwise. This saw her slip to a disappointing 6th in the championship, the only title contender not to finish on the podium in the final 4 rounds of the championship.

Regardless, she was tapped to replace the banned Naoki Shinjo for Union Saver Developments making her ARWS debut in the final round of the 2019 season, the Chinese Grand Prix. At just 18 years old, on the biggest stage imaginable, Gauthier starred in qualifying, demolishing teammate Shinobu Katayama's time by 1.5 seconds - but this did not translate in the race, as an early crash saw her debut end in disappointment.

2020 & 2021

For 2020, Gauthier had many offers with various ARWS teams, but elected to remain with USD for her rookie season. A 4th place finish in the first race of the season seemed to herald good things for her and the team - but these were quickly dashed as the Leonhard von Gottorp scandal wiped out the season after just 2 races. Gauthier wound up taking refuge with Team Abt in the DTM series for 2020 and 2021, narrowly missing out on the 2021 title to Monika Flater.

2022 & 2023

Although she had an offer to continue in DTM beyond 2021, Gauthier's true passion was always single seaters, and when a spot opened up for her to resume chasing her dream in F2 with Prema for 2022, she quickly took it.

ARWS

2024

Four years after she initially thought she would be getting her first full season in ARWS competition, Gauthier finally got a second chance at the series for the 2024 season, this time for William Storey's Rich Energy Racing Point ARWS Team.

Career Summary

Year Series Team Races Wins Poles F/Laps Podiums Points Position
2016 F1RDS Winter Cup Écurie Prenois 6 0 1 0 3 46 2nd
F1RDS Écurie Prenois 20 1 3 0 7 151 2nd
IFRC Écurie Prenois 9 0 0 0 0 4 48th
2016-17 Formula Nippon Noritake Terada Racing 8 1 4 0 3 245 1st
2017 F3RWRS Atlantean Voeckler Junior 7 0 0 0 2 49 5th
2017-18 Formula Nippon Noritake Terada Racing 18 4 7 2 7 475 2nd
2018 AR3.5 Africa Voeckler Grand Prix Engineering 2 0 0 1 0 8 13th
AR3.5 Voeckler Grand Prix Engineering 17 0 1 0 5 76 10th
2019 AR3.5 Middle East Écurie Prenois 4 1 0 0 2 38 4th
AR3.5 Écurie Prenois 22 3 1 3 6 130 6th
ARWS Union Saver Developments 1 0 0 0 0 0 39th
2020 ARWS Union Saver Developments 2 0 0 0 3 0 7th
2022 F2 Prema Powerteam 0 0 0 0 0 0 NC
2024 ARWS Rich Energy Racing Point ARWS Team 0 0 0 0 0 0 NC

Complete Results

F1RDS Winter Cup Results

Year Team Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 DC Pts
2016 Écurie Prenois Peugeot-Cosworth 2.0L V6 SN1
3
SN2
17
LS1
8
LS2
2
LB1
9
LB2
2
2nd 46

F1RDS Results

Year Team Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 DC Pts
2016 Écurie Prenois Peugeot-Cosworth 2.0L V6 SP1
2
SP2
2
UK1
8
UK2
11
ITA
7
AUT
6
TU1
2
TU2
14
FR1
9
FR2
5
GER
9
NED
1
EN1
7
EN2
5
BE1
8
BE2
21
CZ1
2
CZ2
3
JP1
5
JP1
2
2nd 151

IFRC/AR3.5 Results

Year Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 DC Points
2016 Écurie Prenois AUS
HEA
AUS
FEA
MEX
HEA
MEX
FEA
FRA
HEA
FRA
FEA
GBR
HEA
GBR
FEA
ITA
HEA
ITA
FEA
USA
HEA
8
USA
FEA
12
GER
HEA
7
GER
FEA
Ret
NED
HEA
10
NED
FEA
13
FIN
HEA
8
FIN
FEA
Ret
BEL
HEA
Ret
BEL
FEA
DNQ
RUS
HEA
EX
RUS
FEA
EX
JPN
HEA
EX
JPN
FEA
EX
48th 4
2018 Voeckler Grand Prix Engineering AUS
HEA
9
AUS
FEA
11
ITA
HEA
7
ITA
FEA
17
FRA
HEA
6
FRA
FEA
DNS
USA
HEA
17
USA
FEA
C
GBR
HEA
2
GBR
FEA
2
AUT
HEA
2
AUT
FEA
8
NED
HEA
4
NED
FEA
2
GER
HEA
6
GER
FEA
10
BEL
HEA
3
BEL
FEA
9
JPN
HEA
Ret
JPN
FEA
DNQ
10th 76
2019 Écurie Prenois AUS
HEA
2
AUS
FEA
3
ESP
HEA
2
ESP
FEA
4
ITA
HEA
10
ITA
FEA
2
FRA
HEA
7
FRA
FEA
9
IRL
HEA
1
IRL
FEA
15
GBR
HEA
8
GBR
FEA
1
AUT
HEA
13
AUT
FEA
1
GER
HEA
4
GER
FEA
21
BEL
HEA

4
BEL
FEA
4
USA
HEA
4
USA
FEA
4
JPN
HEA

4
JPN
FEA
Ret
6th 130

Formula Nippon

Year Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 DC Pts
2016-17 Noritake Terada Racing AUO
3
OKY
1
SUZ
5
YEO
Ret
MOT
Ret
SUG
20†
MOT
4
FUJ
2
1st 245
2017-18 Noritake Terada Racing FUJ
R1
Ret
FUJ
R2
1
SUG
R1
1
SUG
R2
3
MOT
R1
3
MOT
R2
14
MOT
R1
10
MOT
R2
Ret
YEO
R1
Ret
YEO
R2
4
OKY
R1
23
OKY
R2
Ret
SEN
R1
Ret
SEN
R2
Ret
AUT
R1
Ret
AUT
R2
1
SUZ
R1
3
SUZ
R2
1
2nd 475

F3RWRS results

(Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Team Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DC Pts
2017 Atlantean Voeckler Junior Mygale M-17 Maserati 017/3 HIG
SP
Ret
AUS
R1
Ret
AUS
R2
25†
GBR
R1
3
GBR
R2
2
AUT
R1
14
AUT
R2
C
USA
R1
5
USA
R2
C
ATP
SP
C
NED
R1
C
NED
R2
C
BEL
R1
C
BEL
R2
C
MOR
R1
C
MOR
R2
C
SUR
SP
C
5th 49

AutoReject 3.5 Middle Eastern & Africa Cup results

Year Team 1 2 3 4 Pos Pts
2018 Voeckler Grand Prix Engineering KYA
5
PHA
NAM
Ret
ANG
13th 8
2019 Écurie Prenois DUB
3
ABU
4
QAT
12
BAH
1
4th 38

ARWS Results

Year Team Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 DC Pts
2019 Union Saver Developments KS-02 Daihatsu Zeetec-R2/19 AUS
NSW
KIN
ITA
MAR
CAN
500
GBR
AUT
GER
SCA
BEL
MON
RSA
BRA
ARG
JPN
CHN
Ret
39th 0
2020 Union Saver Developments KS-03 Daihatsu Zeetec-R2/20 AUS
4
NSW
Ret
ARG
C
BRA
C
500
C
CAN
C
GBR
C
BEL
C
MON
C
ITA
C
AUT
C
GER
C
SAF
C
INA
C
MAL
C
PAC
C
JPN
C
CHN
C
7th 3
2024 Rich Energy Racing Point ARWS Team WJS-24 Koenigsegg ATFG MON
MED
LUX
GER
CRI
GRS
NUS
ITA
GBR
CAN
RNO
SUS
MAL
KIN
JPN
AUS
NC 0

Formula 2 Results

Year Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 DC Pts
2022 Prema Powerteam NC 0