Alex Lloyd (racing driver)

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.

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. 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.

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.

American open–wheel racing results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

IndyCar

 * 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.

Indianapolis 500
Pirelli World Challenge