For all of Chloe Chambers' life, the goal was to be fast.
Since the age of eight, Chambers has had a fighting passion and love for racing in motorsports. Now, Chambers races around the world in the F1 Academy while studying business administration at ASU.
This passion she has been chasing for the past 12 years stemmed from her father's love of motorsports, which led to Chambers beginning her career in go-karts.
In 2021, Chambers switched from go-karting to single-seat in the Formula 4 United States Championship. Then in 2022, Chambers joined the W Series — the step between Formula 4 and Formula 3. The young racer continued to join different series until joining the F1 Academy in 2024.
"Each car has its own challenges to it, but the fundamentals are always the same," Chambers said. "To be a top driver, one of the main things that you have to learn is the ability to switch between the different styles of car and different types of car."
Chambers now races for Red Bull Ford in the F1 Academy after racing for Haas the previous year.
The F1 Academy is an all-female, single-seater racing series backed by Formula 1, where racers are only allowed to participate for two years. The series is devoted to increasing women's presence in motorsports.
Growing up, Chambers said she never noticed how she was usually the only girl competing in a race until later in her career. She said she was "lucky" for not considering or focusing on being the only girl at the beginning of her career.
"Initiatives like the F1 Academy and W Series — I think that's making a really big change in motorsport," Chambers said. "It's really nice to see how many more girls we're seeing in the sport, not even in driving, also off track, as like mechanics or engineers or race directors, or any role in the sport."
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Currently, Chambers sits at No. 3 out of 19 racers and placed second last weekend in race 2 at the Jeddah circuit in Saudi Arabia.
The American racer has always strived to be the best in motorsports and finds the head-to-head competition a reason for her love of the sport.
"Racing takes that (competitiveness) up a notch, because, of course, you're racing at high speeds," Chambers said. "You're really elbows out with racing, I would say. I really like the racing type of competition where you can visually see your competition. It's the first person to cross the finish line type of competition that I like."
The series contains races from Shanghai to Las Vegas with two races for each race round, rather than one.
While traveling around the world to pursue her career, Chambers decided to continue her education at ASU as a part-time online student.
"ASU had a really highly rated online program, one that I could do fully remote and was going to be the best opportunity for me to continue on with my education while also racing," Chambers said.
Balancing school and sports was always normal for Chambers since she started at a young age. She ultimately found it easy to be a proactive student and a competitive athlete.
"My mom is a teacher, actually, so she's a big part in keeping me on top of my grades," Chambers said. "She always told me that I had to keep my grades up if I wanted to continue racing. So of course, that was a good incentive to want to keep up my education."
While balancing her career with education hasn't been challenging for the racer, financing her dream can become a struggle.
For racers to keep up with their careers financially, they often gain sponsorships. However, to obtain a sponsorship, racers need the confidence to attract a company, Chambers said. Chambers has had the same sponsorship from Monoflo International, a packaging manufacturing company, since 2022.
"It's one thing to be confident in yourself, but if people can't see that on you and you're not able to show that you have the confidence in yourself to succeed, then it'll be more difficult to find those sponsors," Chambers said.
Chambers said she's even had teachers and people in the past tell her motorsports was never worth anything because of the lack of its presence in the U.S., which was "discouraging."
But despite many obstacles, Chambers strives to continue to move up the ranks in motorsports.
"There's always a way to make it work, and it's going to require a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication and a lot of sacrifice as well, but the rewards that you get are just so much bigger than that," Chambers said.
Edited by Henry Smardo, Abigail Beck and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at sjames51@asu.edu and follow @sennajames_ on X.
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Senna is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication with a minor in Spanish. This is her fourth semester with The State Press.
