Swedish schoolgirl Alexia Danielsson has just claimed victory in the season opener of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Scandinavia – aged just 16.
Countless thoughts will enter the mind of a student about to sit a geography exam. They are unlikely, however, to be preoccupied by their impending debut in the Porsche Sprint Challenge. It is even less likely for that student to then have to balance nervousness for a maths exam with the elation of winning their debut race. Yet this was exactly the experience of 16-year-old Swedish racing driver, Alexia Danielsson.
Youngest driver on the grid
Having won her seat in the Scandinavian Sprint Challenge through the Race Apprentice 2025 programme, Danielsson was the youngest driver on the grid in Anderstorp for the season opener with the sole aim of not finishing last.
Far from her age being a disadvantage, the young driver felt little pressure to compete against the vastly greater experience of the others in the race. That was, until she completed free practice and realised how fast she was. For others, however, her potential was clear from the start.
Always dreamed of driving a Porsche
Danielsson grew up around motorsport, watching her father compete. At the age of seven she began racing karts herself and by 13, she had graduated to Formula cars, having won several of the junior classes. Last year she competed in Danish Formula 4 and applied for the Race Apprentice 2025 programme, an initiative by Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky and Porsche Sweden to give young women the opportunity to develop their motorsport careers. Danielsson immediately demonstrated her potential and upon completion of the course won the opportunity to race a GT car for the first time.
She describes it as a surreal day when she learned that she had been selected from the programme to drive in the first race of the Scandinavian Sprint Challenge. “I’d always dreamed of driving a Porsche,” she explains. But the 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport presented a unique challenge when compared to her Formula car. “It was difficult to adapt to,” she says. “Especially the heat inside the closed cabin.”
Despite this – and the fact that she is too young to hold a driving licence for the road –Danielsson excelled behind the wheel against a grid that comprised of last year’s championship runner-up and other successful GT racers – some of whom were three or four times her age.
Taking part in the Race Apprentice programme undoubtedly helped: run over the Swedish winter, it aims to holistically prepare drivers for a racing career, as it provides education not only on track but in media, partnerships and physical training. This is in addition to the Porsche Ice Experience in Lapland which exposes participants to a surface with which they may not be familiar.
Hard work and dedication
Danielsson also believes her youth helped – not just with her fast reaction times and adaptability, but also in her mentality towards her future career. While her victory at the Scandinavian Raceway was undoubtedly the product of hard work and dedication, she views it as a formative step towards her dream of being a professional driver competing internationally. She says she is not limiting herself to a single category, adding: “I don’t mind what the car is, I just want it to be fast.”
The season opener was dominated by the grid’s women. The 16-year-old winner was joined on the podium by fellow female driver Lærke Rønn Sørensen – who placed second before going on to win the second heat of the weekend – and for a while it appeared as if Emma Wigroth would be joining them too. Ultimately, it was Rasmus Vendelbo who would take the third spot on the podium.
With little time to celebrate her win, just a few hours later Danielsson was back at home and conscientiously prepping for her next exam. “I don’t know if girls are looking up to me. I am still looking up to older drivers,” she says, laughing. She is perhaps too young, and currently too focused on her schoolwork, to consider herself a role model for girls wishing to break into motor racing. But for many she has already achieved that status.
