Lia Block: “I love racing… this is what I want to pursue in my life”

Not many teenagers can say their first daily driver was a 1985 Audi Quattro they fixed up themselves. But there aren’t many 18-year-olds like Lia Block.

“We found it in an old barn, I think in New Jersey,” she told TG in the build-up to the Miami Grand Prix a little while back. “And I kind of fixed it up on my own. It's really nice. I mean, she is an old car, so she cannot have all the bells and whistles that cars do have today. But it's perfect for going to the ski hill in the winter and driving around town.”

No half-measures, this was a proper resto job. “We basically gutted it down to the shell,” she said, “and had to power blast it because there was so much rust.” After a full respray, in came new adjustable coilover springs, fuel system, white 17in Motegi wheels, a Euro-style bumper, spoiler, and classic Recaro LX seats.

Not to mention a 20-valve 5cyl turbo – good for around 300hp – to replace the existing 10-valve, with a new radiator, gaskets, throttle body and intake manifold. Naturally there’s a video and even more naturally it sounds filthy. What a thing.

“It was a really cool project and it just makes it that much more special to drive around a car that you built yourself.” Damn right. An “old truck, or maybe another old Audi” are next on the wishlist.

The daughter of the late, great, and much-missed Ken, Lia’s had the kind of motorsport home-schooling that petrolheads can only dream of. She learned how to drive a manual at 13 and was racing UTVs before that; at 14 she was drag racing the 1,400bhp Hoonicorn. And winning in it.

Things stepped up a notch in 2023: aged 16 Lia became the American Rally Association’s youngest ever champion, taking the open two-wheel drive title alongside Rhianon Gelsomino in a Subaru BRZ, as well as completing half a season of Extreme E and embarking on a partial Nitrocross NEXT campaign that yielded a trio of podiums.

But then her career took an unexpected turn, as she branched out into single-seaters by signing for Williams as the team’s F1 Academy driver. The phrase ‘in at the deep end’ doesn’t quite cut it.

“It’s so different,” she said. “Honestly, I kind of had to turn off the off-road side of my brain and learn from scratch again.” Did she ever find herself trying to drift around corners? “No! But I would say I'm not afraid to let the car get a little bit loose.

“I have the confidence to be able to control the car. I think that's what I really gained from off-road, is that car control. And to know where it is under you at all times.”

Block explains that knowing her debut season would be a learning year – and that she wasn’t “going to win off the bat” – was the hardest thing to deal with, having never really looked at telemetry before, never mind used it to hunt down lap time gains like her more experienced rivals.

The biggest revelation was how “one metre braking later” can have such a big impact on the stopwatch. “But also going back and looking at it in a bigger perspective,” she added. “Like, you can't even snap your fingers in one second, right?

“And that's how much separates us drivers on the track. Which I think is really big to battle mentally when you're trying to go for one or two tenths.”

Lia reckons those margins are equally small in rallying, although mistakes are punished in, er, slightly different ways. “In rally, you may be going off a cliff or into a tree… here on these nice tracks, you know what you're gonna crash into. Most likely a wall or another competitor.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Now in her second season of F1 Academy – in which she bagged a first ever podium finish in Zandvoort last month – Block is relishing the “amazing” vibe at Williams. She speaks of “such a good family dynamic within the teams” and points to all the people – including a sports psychologist and physical trainer – she’s able to learn from and lean on. No doubt Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz Jnr are good sounding boards for advice, too.

In rally, you may be going off a cliff or into a tree… here on these nice tracks, you know what you're gonna crash into.

“It's been so influential on my character and driving personality through last year,” she said, “and just made me so much of a better driver.”

So is Lia hooked on asphalt now, or will dirt and gravel always be her bread and butter? “I enjoy both. I really do enjoy rally and F1 Academy has grown on me with single seaters. In the future my goal is to be racing in a world championship.”

She’s got plenty of time to map out a path to get there, although Lia says she’d love to go back to Pikes Peak and race it competitively, and – given her mother, sister and brother are all keeping her father’s legacy alive under the banner of Block House Racing – she doesn’t rule out bringing Gymkhana back to our screens one day either.

“I'm very thankful that I grew up in a family of motorsport, and I was able to have these opportunities at a young age to be able to introduce me to it.

“I'm just doing what I love,” she said. “I love racing, you know? And this is what I want to pursue in my life.”