Wade Grant Cunningham (born 19 August 1984) is a racing driver from

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

who competed in the

Firestone Indy Lights Series 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 program ...

Racing career

Indy Lights

Cunningham's professional career began when he won the Karting World Championship in 2003. The following year he moved to the United States and competed in the Cooper Tires Formula Ford Zetec Championship in which he finished 5th after winning four consecutive poles and seven podium finishes. He won the 2005 Indy Lights Series championship in his rookie season for

Brian Stewart Racing Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word mea ...

despite only winning a single race. He continued with the team in 2006 and won 3 more races, including the

Freedom 100 The Freedom 100 was an automobile race held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, as part of the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires. The event was a support race for the IndyCar Series Indianapolis 500, and since 2 ...

at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (becoming the first driver from New Zealand to do so) and placed third in championship points despite missing two races due to an emergency appendectomy. While missing out on the drivers title the team was still able to claim their second consecutive entrants championship because they were able to replace Wade with a reserve driver for those events. He narrowly missed the title by 11 points and would have easily clinched his second drivers championship had he started either of those events. He drove in the

A1 Grand Prix A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) was a "single-make" open-wheel auto racing series that ran from 2005 until 2009. It was unique in its field in that competitors solely represented their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most for ...

series as practice driver for

A1 Team New Zealand A1 Team New Zealand is the New Zealand team of A1 Grand Prix, an international racing series. Management The team was formed by and is owned by prominent Auckland businessman Colin Giltrap, well known for this car dealerships. The team is mana ...

in the round in Taupo, New Zealand and China. He returned to the Indy Lights Series in 2007 for AGR-AFS Racing where he finished 3rd.

IndyCar Series

In December 2007 Cunningham tested an

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...

machine for the first time at Sebring as a reward for his results with their satellite team in the Indy Lights Series, driving the

Andretti Green Racing Andretti Autosport is an auto racing team that competes in the IndyCar Series, Indy Lights, Indy Pro 2000, and Formula E. The team also has a 37.5% ownership stake in the Australian Supercars Championship touring car team, Walkinshaw Andret ...

IndyCar normally driven by

Marco Andretti Marco Michael Andretti (born March 13, 1987) is an American auto racing driver who drives the No. 98 car for Andretti Herta Autosport part-time in the IndyCar Series. He is the third generation of the famous Andretti racing family. He is the 20 ...

. Wade's brother

Mitch Mitch is a short form of the masculine given name Mitchell. It is also sometimes a nickname, usually for a person with the surname Mitchell. It may refer to: People * Mitch Altman (born 1956), hacker and inventor * Mitch Apau (born 1990), Dutc ...

made his Firestone Indy Lights Series debut (formerly the Indy Pro Series) in 2008 for Brian Stewart Racing, the same team with whom Wade had his initial success. Wade made a handful of starts in the series in 2008, both for Brian Stewart and in the Mid-Ohio double-header for the new Alliance Motorsports team. He signed on to return to the series full-time in 2009 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 ...

. Upon joining the team, he became the first driver to win a second

at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Cunningham won again that race in 2010 in a one-race deal for the Schmidt team, becoming the only three-time winner of the

. Sam Schmidt announced 11 February that Cunningham would make his Izod IndyCar Series debut in 2011 with Sam Schmidt Motorsports in a three race deal. He qualified 8th on debut at Texas Motor Speedway for the Firestone Texas Twin 275s and posted a season and career best IndyCar finish at the Indy Kentucky 300 when he finished 7th a mere 0.702 seconds from the lead.

Racing record

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

American open–wheel racing results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Indy Lights

IndyCar Series

References

External links

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Wade Cunningham Indy Pro Series/Firestone Indy Lights Statistics

IndyCar Driver Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Wade 1984 births A1 Grand Prix Rookie drivers Karting World Championship drivers Indy Lights champions Indy Lights drivers IndyCar Series drivers Living people New Zealand racing drivers Sportspeople from Auckland Toyota Racing Series drivers Indianapolis 500 drivers V8SuperTourer drivers U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers Arrow McLaren SP drivers AFS Racing drivers A. J. Foyt Enterprises drivers Andretti Autosport drivers Chip Ganassi Racing drivers