Simona de Silvestro

Born:

September 01 1988

Nationality:

Switzerland

First race:

São Paulo, 2010

Races:

Wins:

Race Win %:

About Simona de Silvestro

Biography

Performance by Circuit Type

Results

Biography

Simona de Silvestro is a former IndyCar driver holding both Swiss and Italian nationality. She ultimately started 77 races, with a second-place finish in Houston (2013) as her best result.

Road to the IndyCar Series

As a European driver, Simona de Silvestro took a highly unusual path to the IndyCar Series. After karting, the Swiss racer began her motorsports career in the Italian Formula Renault championship, but after just one year she moved to America to compete in the U.S. Formula BMW championship. There, she immediately claimed a race victory and finished fourth in the championship.

This opened the door for De Silvestro to the Champ Car Atlantics. After a difficult first season and a respectable second season, she was a dominant force in the championship for much of 2009, until she was hit twice near the end of the season and, despite four wins, dropped to third in the standings.

IndyCar debut in 2010

Her strong results in Atlantics earned De Silvestro an IndyCar contract with HVM Racing. During her rookie season, the Swiss driver impressed on several occasions, particularly in qualifying, but strong race results proved elusive. The 2011 season did begin with a notable result — a fourth-place finish in St. Petersburg — but this would remain the highlight of her year. As the only driver running the underpowered Lotus engine, the 2012 season became particularly challenging, after which she parted ways with HVM Racing to join KV Racing Technology in 2013 with the more competitive Chevrolet engines.

It quickly became clear that the difficult prior season had largely been due to the uncompetitive Lotus engine. In her year with KV Racing Technology, De Silvestro scored nine top-ten finishes in nineteen races, highlighted by a second-place finish on the streets of Houston. She ultimately finished thirteenth in the championship, just two positions behind Tony Kanaan, her teammate at the time. Despite a strong 2013 campaign, De Silvestro did not appear on the IndyCar grid in 2014, having accepted a role as a test driver with the Sauber Formula 1 team.

In 2015, De Silvestro returned to the IndyCar paddock, contesting a limited part-time program of three races with Andretti Autosport, including the Indianapolis 500. Her best result that season did not come at the famous 2.5-mile oval, but at NOLA Motorsports Park, where De Silvestro finished fourth in an extremely rain-soaked race. Later that year, again driving for Andretti Autosport, the Swiss racer made her Formula E debut at the season finale in London. In October 2015, De Silvestro began her first full season in the all-electric series with Amlin Andretti. It proved to be a difficult campaign, however, as she finished eighteenth in the standings, with two ninth-place finishes as her best results.

Part-time program with Andretti Autosport

The 2015 season was not solely focused on IndyCar and Formula E for De Silvestro. That same year, the Swiss driver also made her Virgin Australian Supercars debut, competing in the iconic Bathurst 1000 with Prodrive Racing Australia. In 2016, De Silvestro returned to the thousand-kilometer endurance race and recorded a solid fourteenth-place finish for Nissan Motorsport, improving on her twenty-first-place result from the previous year. From 2017 through 2019, De Silvestro competed full-time in the Virgin Australian Supercars Championship. She drove her first two seasons for Nissan Motorsport before moving to Kelly Racing for her final year. Driving for Rick and Todd Kelly’s team, she recorded the best season of her Supercars career, finishing nineteenth in the championship. That year, she also achieved her best race result in the series with a seventh-place finish at Pukekohe Park Raceway.

In 2019, while racing full-time in Australia, De Silvestro made a brief return to the United States to debut in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, competing in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Heinricher Racing with Meyer Shank Racing in the GTD class. The race went reasonably well for the Swiss driver, who finished twelfth overall. Since 2020, De Silvestro has primarily competed in Europe. The Swiss racer has mainly participated in the ADAC GT Masters, where she has held a factory driver contract with Porsche. In addition to her ADAC GT Masters program, De Silvestro also contested a race in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup that same year.

Return to the IndyCar Series

In 2021, De Silvestro continued racing in the ADAC GT Masters as a Porsche factory driver. She also returned to the NTT IndyCar Series during the 105th Indianapolis 500, competing in the world-famous 500-mile race for the newly formed Paretta Autosport team, which received technical support from Team Penske. The former Sauber Formula 1 test driver appeared to be on course for a solid result in her first IndyCar race since 2015, until a pit lane incident on lap 170 ended her race prematurely. As a result, De Silvestro was classified in thirty-first position.

In 2022, De Silvestro did not compete in the Indy 500 with Paretta Autosport, but did participate in four other races. The season did not produce the desired results, and no continuation of her IndyCar career followed.

Transition to bobsledding

In early 2022, De Silvestro shifted her focus to another sport: bobsledding. Representing Italy, she began a training program aimed at the 2026 Winter Olympics. She ultimately succeeded, qualifying for both the monobob and the two-woman bobsled events.

Performance by Circuit Type

Type	Races	Avg Finish	Race Win %
Oval	28	22.0714	0%
Streetcourse	27	14.7778	0%
Roadcourse	18	15.8333	0%
Airfield	3	23.0000	0%

Results

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2010
March 14	São Paulo Indy 300 São Paulo	Streetcourse	16
March 29	Honda GP of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg	Streetcourse	16
April 11	Grand Prix of Alabama Barber Motorsports Park	Roadcourse	21
April 18	Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Long Beach	Streetcourse	17
May 1	Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 Kansas	Oval	21
May 30	Indianapolis 500 Indianapolis	Oval	14
June 5	Firestone 550k Texas Motor Speedway	Oval	24
June 20	Iowa Corn Indy 250 Iowa Speedway	Oval	21
July 4	Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen Watkins Glen	Roadcourse	24
July 18	Honda Indy Toronto Toronto	Streetcourse	9
July 25	Honda Indy Edmonton Edmonton	Airfield	22
August 8	The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Mid-Ohio	Roadcourse	8
August 22	Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Sonoma Raceway	Roadcourse	13
August 28	PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300 Chicagoland	Oval	23
September 4	Grand Prix of Kentucky Kentucky Speedway	Oval	25
September 19	Honda Indy Japan Motegi Oval	Oval	23
October 2	Homestead-Miami Speedway Homestead	Oval	23

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2011
March 27	Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg	Streetcourse	4
April 10	Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Barber Motorsports Park	Roadcourse	9
April 17	37th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Long Beach	Streetcourse	20
May 2	São Paulo Indy 300 São Paulo	Streetcourse	20
May 29	95th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race Indianapolis	Oval	31
June 11	Firestone Twin 275s Race 1 Texas Motor Speedway	Oval	26
June 11	Firestone Twin 275s Race 2 Texas Motor Speedway	Oval	27
June 19	Grand Prix of Milwaukee Milwaukee Mile	Oval	25
June 25	Iowa Corn Indy 250 Iowa Speedway	Oval	26
July 10	Honda Indy Toronto Toronto	Streetcourse	10
July 24	Honda Indy Edmonton Edmonton	Airfield	24
August 7	Honda 200 Mid-Ohio	Roadcourse	12
August 14	MoveThatBlock.com INDY® 225 New Hampshire	Oval	16
September 4	Baltimore Grand Prix Baltimore	Streetcourse	12
September 18	Indy Japan - The Final Motegi Road Course	Roadcourse	14
October 2	Kentucky Indy 300 Kentucky Speedway	Oval	25

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2012
March 25	Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg	Streetcourse	24
April 1	Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Barber Motorsports Park	Roadcourse	20
April 15	38th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Long Beach	Streetcourse	20
April 29	São Paulo Indy 300 São Paulo	Streetcourse	24
May 27	96th Indianapolis 500 Indianapolis	Oval	32
June 3	Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix Detroit Belle Isle	Streetcourse	13
June 9	Firestone 550K Texas Motor Speedway	Oval	25
June 16	Milwaukee IndyFest Milwaukee Mile	Oval	24
June 23	Iowa Speedway Iowa Speedway	Oval	14
July 8	Honda Indy Toronto Toronto	Streetcourse	24
July 22	Edmonton Indy Edmonton	Airfield	23
August 5	Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Mid-Ohio	Roadcourse	23
August 26	GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Sonoma Raceway	Roadcourse	17
September 2	Streets of Baltimore Baltimore	Streetcourse	22
September 15	MAVTV 500 Fontana	Oval	26

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2013
March 24	Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg	Streetcourse	6
April 7	Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Barber Motorsports Park	Roadcourse	18
April 21	Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Long Beach	Streetcourse	9
May 5	Itaipava São Paulo Indy 300 São Paulo	Streetcourse	8
May 26	97th Indianapolis 500 Indianapolis	Oval	17
June 1	Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix Detroit Belle Isle	Streetcourse	16
June 2	Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix Detroit Belle Isle	Streetcourse	24
June 8	Firestone 550 Texas Motor Speedway	Oval	16
June 15	Milwaukee IndyFest Milwaukee Mile	Oval	24
June 23	Iowa Corn Indy 250 Iowa Speedway	Oval	21
July 7	Pocono 400 Pocono	Oval	11
July 13	Honda Indy Toronto Toronto	Streetcourse	10
July 14	Honda Indy Toronto Toronto	Streetcourse	14
August 4	Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Mid-Ohio	Roadcourse	11
August 25	GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Sonoma Raceway	Roadcourse	9
September 1	Grand Prix of Baltimore Baltimore	Streetcourse	5
October 5	Shell Grand Prix of Houston Houston	Streetcourse	2
October 6	Shell Grand Prix of Houston Houston	Streetcourse	10
October 19	INDYCAR World Championships Fontana	Oval	8

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2015
March 29	Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg	Streetcourse	18
April 12	Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana NOLA Motorsports Park	Roadcourse	4
May 24	99th Indianapolis 500 Indianapolis	Oval	19

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2021
May 30	105th Indianapolis 500 Indianapolis	Oval	31

Date (ET)	Race	Type	FP
2022
June 12	Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America Road America	Roadcourse	21
July 3	Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Mid-Ohio	Roadcourse	18
August 7	Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Nashville	Streetcourse	26
September 11	Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey Laguna Seca	Roadcourse	22
September 11	Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey Laguna Seca	Roadcourse	21