For International Women’s Day, The Girl Who – Motorsport highlighted a few women who have made their mark on IndyCar. As part of that, we wanted to give each of them the spotlight. We spoke to Lauren Sullivan about her earliest memories that led her to work in engineering, and her transition from airplanes to motorsports. She also shared her advice and her vision for the future of women in motorsport.

Early Days 

When Sullivan was growing up, she always loved math and science, and she found those hands-on technical projects frustrating yet rewarding. “I think again, from an early age, I just liked those technical projects that were hands-on.“ One project that sticks out is her 5th-grade science project. She and her dad built a small wind tunnel using a vacuum to help with the airflow.

That introduction to aerodynamics would take years to come to fruition because, at that time, she explained that she “didn’t really know what to call it until later in life, but I followed that passion of how do I get to do more of those projects?”

Sullivan earned an aerospace engineering degree at St. Louis University, landing a job at Boeing’s St. Louis operations. There, she took the role of a wind tunnel test engineer, fulfilling what she thought was going to be her career forever. 

She would take on the role for five years before realizing she didn’t like airplanes; she found them ‘really boring’. She needed a change.

“So I’m like, okay, I want to keep wind tunnel testing. I really like wind tunnels, but I want to test something else that’s not airplanes. What else could I test? And then it dawned on me, oh, race cars.”

Finding Motorsport Again

Growing up, she and her family were big NASCAR fans. They had a race team that raced Super Late Model NASCARs at the Irwindale Speedway. Considering her background, it would make sense that she would go into motorsport. However, there was one big thing stopping her.

“To me, it was always a hobby, and you had to have a real job, so you could go do motorsport, like motorsport would never be a career.”

Despite that, Sullivan later realized that was not the case and began her motorsports career on the NASCAR side of Team Penske. She joined as a design engineer. Quickly, she made her way up to wind tunnel testing to the lead for full-scale testing.

One day, Penske’s upper management approached her asking if she wanted to join the female-led Paretta Autosport entry in the 2021 Indianapolis 500. There she fell in love with open-wheel racing and changed the course of her career again.

“I think what hooked me from the engineering side was that there were sensors and data on the car in real time. So, if the driver said they were understeer, oversteer, or tight or loose, we could see it in the data, whereas you don’t have that in NASCAR.”

Continuing with Team Penske, Lauren Sullivan made the switch to their IndyCar program and got involved as an engineer and a logistics coordinator. During her time, she had the opportunity to spot Josef Newgarden a few times, including during his 2024 St. Petersburg victory.

In 2025, she joined Arrow McLaren as their Lead Test Engineer. She returned to using her skills in all forms of testing. She was also the Car Communicator for Kyle Larson for the Month of May.

Women in Motorsports

Growing up and in the early part of her career, Sullivan was usually one of the few females in her field. Today, that is far from the case.

Through her years in the paddock, Sullivan has seen that gender equality in motorsports has come a long way, but there’s still progress to be made. While there’s increased representation of women around the paddock, the next step is to see upward growth.

“Where I am hoping to see more of that change is in the senior management leadership positions and those who are making the decisions.”

Sullivan is currently between jobs but continues to be an advocate for women in motorsport. Her advice for young women in STEM is not to make the same mistake she made when she was growing up.

“Don’t change who you are just to fit the mold, because your learning curve will be longer, and you don’t ever want to compromise yourself for what you’re going after.”