Editors’ Note

Aurora Straus is a professional racecar driver, founder, and consultant. She was most recently a management consultant at Bain and Company, where she specialized in growth strategy and go-to-market design. Straus made her professional racing debut at 16 years old. Since then, she has made history across various series, including as Rookie of the Year in IMSA, as the runner-up champion in Pirelli World Challenge, and as the first woman globally to win a race in Radical Cup North America. In 2018, she founded “Girls With Drive,” an initiative that introduces young girls to careers in the automotive industry. Along with Founding Partner Molly Straus, she also co-founded and managed the world’s first sleep-away teenage motorsports camp, a wildly popular program that has since kickstarted multiple professional racing careers. Straus, who recently married P1 Circuit Engineer Kenny Murillo, received a bachelor of arts in history and literature and government from Harvard College. Kenny and Aurora Straus co-pilot the #24 Murillo Racing Mercedes AMG GT4 in the 2026 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.

Will you discuss your career journey?

I have had an unconventional career journey, starting when I became a professional driver as a teenager while still in high school – lots of reading in the pit lane! Following high school, I went on to Harvard where I received my bachelor of arts in history and literature and government. Then I spent time as a consultant at Bain & Company, continuing to race across three different global series the whole way through. Today, I race the number 24 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge while serving as President of P1 Motor Club, the most expansive private automotive resort in the Americas.

When did you know that you had a passion for being a professional racing driver?

I knew I had a passion for being a professional racing driver from the first time I drove on a track. That was my eureka moment. Racing cars is like taking drugs – it’s meditation for type-A personalities. Once you get used to going 150+ miles per hour, normal life slows down. Over time, I’ve fallen in love with the complex business models behind what I do. Racing has cutting-edge engineering, but old-school operations and organization. We operate like a traveling circus – equipment and crew are transported globally via planes, trailers, and shipping containers. Lack of diversity starts young in motorsports; most young girls quit go-karting by age 13. I am chomping at the bit to shape racing both culturally and operationally, and P1 is the next part of what I hope will be a long journey to transform the racing world.

What was the vision for creating P1 Motor Club?

I never stopped driving, but I’ve expanded from driving cars to building the places where people fall in love with them, and that is my vision for creating P1 Motor Club. My team and I wanted to build the pinnacle private motorsports community, a place designed not just for drivers, but also for their families and friends. My father spent 12 years leading Monticello Motor Club, and we saw firsthand what a motor club can mean to its members. P1 applies everything we have learned to create the ultimate private motorsports destination: 650 acres in Port St. Lucie, the most expansive private motorsports campus in the Americas, featuring world-class circuits, garage townhomes, karting, off-road experiences, and a genuine community at the center. P1 Motor Club is a family business in the truest sense. My father, my mother, my husband, and I are all building it together which only furthers our vision to create a meaningful community centered around motorsports.

How do you define P1 Motor Club’s mission?

Our mission is to forge lifelong bonds among members, families, and friends through incomparable, life-shaping shared experiences. The track is the catalyst, but the bonds are the outcome we’re solving for. Everything we do from circuit design to how we structure a member day comes back to that.

How do you describe the P1 Motor Club experience?

I would describe the P1 Motor Club experience as pairing the adrenaline of performance with the warmth of a private community. Members get world-class driving with our Treasure Coast Circuit, a 4.5-mile FIA-grade P1 Circuit, member days and driving events; but the experience extends far beyond the wheel. P1 Motor Club is a place where a member can chase lap times in the morning, watch their kids go-kart in the afternoon, and have dinner with friends who’ve become family. To me, the biggest luxuries in life are quiet and organic: we’re building genuine camaraderie, and a standard of safety and instruction that lets everyone, from first-timers to professionals, find their edge.

How do you focus your efforts with P1 Motor Club?

As President, I sit where P1’s creative vision, commercial engine, and daily operations meet. My efforts focus on owning our strategic plan, the operating rhythm underneath it, and our major corporate partnerships. I serve as the guardian of the brand, so I take personally how P1 shows up in the world, from the member experience down to the smallest design detail. If I had to distill it to one sentence that I try to focus on every day, I make sure everything we build, sell, and operate aligns with our mission statement: to forge lifelong bonds among members, families, and friends through incomparable, life-shaping shared experiences. Every single day, I get to wake up and build Disney World for automotive enthusiasts – it is the best job in the world.

What advice do you offer to young women interested in pursuing a career in racing?

To young women interested in pursuing a career in racing, my advice is that you will sometimes be the only woman in the room, but let that sharpen you, not shrink you. The sport rewards preparation and persistence more than anything else, and those are things entirely within your control.