Alexander Ellis (born September 25, 1991) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

racing driver from St. Catharines,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. Alex Ellis began racing in 2005 in go-karts at the age of 14. After a successful foray into karting, Ellis participated in a 1.2L Formula Vee series in Canada in 2008 and won the rookie championship, finishing second overall despite missing the final three races of the season due to driving commitments in Europe. At the end of 2008, Alex won the prestigious Formula BMW Junior Scholarship - a multi-weekend shootout between international drivers, held in Valencia, Spain. This paved the way for 2009 where he drove as a BMW Junior Driver and moved to Formula BMW Americas driving for Autotecnica. As a rookie, Alex finished sixth in points with a best finish of second at Road America. Additionally, he scored three podiums, three fastest laps, and captured a pole at

Lime Rock Park Lime Rock Park is a natural-terrain motorsport road racing venue located in Lakeville, Connecticut, United States, a hamlet in the town of Salisbury, in the state's northwest corner. Built in 1956, it is the nation's third oldest continuously op ...

in the wet. Alex's racing continued to be funded in 2010 by winning another driver shootout, this time in San Francisco, California. He went on to win the Jim Russell "Race of Champions" title, winning a chance to make his

Firestone Indy Lights Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as Firestone Indy NXT Series for sponsorship reasons. Indy Lights is the highest step on the Road to Indy, a progra ...

debut on August 22 at

Infineon Raceway Sonoma Raceway (originally known as Sears Point Raceway from 1967 to 1980 and 1982 to 2002, Golden State International Raceway in 1981 and Infineon Raceway from 2002 to 2012) is a road course and dragstrip located at Sears Point in the southern ...

driving for

Sam Schmidt Motorsports The IndyCar Series operation of McLaren (competing as Arrow McLaren due to sponsorship) is based in Indianapolis and was founded by former IndyCar driver Sam Schmidt in 2001 as Sam Schmidt Motorsports. After a series of partnerships and name ...

. Racing at the highest level of his career, he impressed as a rookie, running the majority of the race in P7 before retiring due to mechanical failure.Alex Ellis wins Jim Russell "Race of Champions" title
''Racer'', August 7, 2010, Retrieved 2010-08-10

References

External links

Alex Ellis official website
1991 births Racing drivers from Ontario Indy Lights drivers Formula BMW USA drivers Sportspeople from St. Catharines Living people {{Canada-autoracing-bio-stub Arrow McLaren SP drivers