Christina Nielsen’s Scuderia Corsa trailer is easy to find in any crowded IMSA paddock: It’s the one flying a Danish flag. The 25-year-old Dane—daughter of endurance racer Lars Erik Nielsen—got her start karting, rising up through Danish Formula Ford and the Porsche Carrera Cup before finding an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD seat in 2015 and winning a groundbreaking class championship in 2016. We caught up with the driver of the No. 63 Ferrari 488 GT3 ahead of the Chevrolet Belle Isle Detroit Grand Prix and her June return to Le Mans. AUTOWEEK: What worked to make 2016 such a strong first year with ­Scuderia Corsa? Christina Nielsen: On one side, Scuderia Corsa knows what makes a good team and what to do to win a championship. For me, I learned a lot the year before (with TRG-AMR), and the sense of leading a championship, the pressure that comes with it. A female hadn’t won a championship like that before, but my first year I walked into it like, “It’s so cool to race in America!” and suddenly I’m leading the championship and I’m like, “What’s going on? It’s my first season!” The second year I felt a little calmer, in the sense that we quickly clicked within in the team, felt really comfortable with each other. AW: You’ve done a lot of trailblazing, but did you have role models—male or female—whom you wanted to emulate? CN: I was the first woman to race in the Porsche Middle East Challenge, the first Danish female to race at Le Mans (in 2016) and the first woman to ever win a full-season professional sports-car championship. I don’t want to sound arrogant. It’s not like I don’t have role models ... but I was in my own little world. I grew up with a family that was like, “Oh, you want to do it? Let’s go do it!”

The No. 63 Ferrari 488 GT3 leaves the pits in Detroit in June. Steven Pham

AW: It sounds like you’re still a little shocked that you’re charging ahead like this. CN: Yeah, I get surprised by myself. I’m like, “Did I just do that?” AW: Already with an IMSA GTD title, where do you go from here? CN: I love being with Scuderia Corsa; my goal is to, together with Alessandro (Balzan) and Matteo (Cressoni) and Scuderia Corsa, to win the championship again. But for sure the dream for me is GTLM. To be supported by a factory would be a dream come true. AW: Is Europe a part of that dream, or would you like to stay in the States? CN: I’d love to do one-offs around the world like Le Mans or Spa, or the Bathurst 12 Hours ... but for a full-season program, I love racing in the IMSA series on these tracks. It’s a pretty good season which has some endurance races like Daytona and Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta—Road Atlanta is my favorite track. AW: What do you tell young hopefuls—men or women—about their chances of making it happen? CN: It’s about being realistic. You don’t ignore the fact that racing costs money, so it’s about finding your angle: What’s going to make you more attractive to sponsors, what’s going to make people want to do an interview with you. The truth is, I don’t like to play the woman card too much, but hey, my book (the Danish-language “To Dare to Dream of Le Mans”) is about gender roles. The woman angle is still popular, apparently. I have a great press guy in Denmark who has acknowledged that. He used to say, “Christina Nielsen, only woman to win blah blah blah” rather than “Christina Nielsen wins blah blah blah” because I didn’t have the name to carry that. He had to put “the only woman.” So it’s about playing your cards, using them correctly. AW: And if it keeps you in the car, you’re willing to do that. CN: To some extent, yes. I love what I do because my team treats me like a driver. When I’m behind the wheel, nobody’s going easy on me because I’m a woman. We’re racing equally. They’re racing me hard; I’m racing them hard. The car can’t tell the difference. But when it comes to promotion off-track, you gotta play the cards that you have. I’m not saying I would go post a bunch of bikini photos—that’s not who I am. AW: Have you talked with any up-and-comers who cite you as an influence? CN: People come up to me, and they write me on social media, but it’s actually often the parents. Which is important for me because the parents are where it all starts. And if the parents show them examples like me and say, “Hey, Christina can do this, this is so cool,” then that kid might think, “So can I.” Steven Pham, 27, is a freelance photographer in search of the perfect Nissan Figaro to import to America. See his photography at stevenphamphoto.com.

Christina Nielsen says that the car doesn't know if its a man or a woman behind the wheel. Steven Pham

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