Olli Caldwell on his professional racing career dream and the return of ELMS to Silverstone

Young British racing driver Olli Caldwell has raced in a number of open and closed wheel racing categories since beginning his career in karts at the age of 8. From Ginetta Juniors to the Formula 1 support ladder in Formula 2 and Formula 3, Olli has worked with and raced alongside some of the biggest names in motorsport.

After making his Formula 1 debut with Alpine at Silverstone in 2022, Olli is returning to a circuit which holds many memories for him as an endurance racing driver, as the European Le Mans Series makes its return to the Home of British Motorsport for the Goodyear 4 Hours of Silverstone after six years away.

Silverstone caught up with Olli to discuss his career so far, from karting to endurance and how his dream has changed as he’s grown as a person and as a racer, as well as the return of ELMS to the Northamptonshire countryside this weekend.

Despite not coming from a racing background and nobody in his family ever racing before, motorsport is still in Olli’s blood. “My grandad worked for Pirelli and was involved in the motorsport department,” he explains. “He loved watching Formula 1, but I never got to meet him.

“My dad has always been interested, but he never got the opportunity to do it himself.”

Olli was first introduced to go karting when he was 8 years old, a little bit later than other racing drivers, at a TeamSport UK indoor karting birthday party. At the time, TeamSport had an indoor karting competition which lasted for a few months, and Olli’s dad took him back to compete. Shortly after, aged 10, Olli made the move from indoor karting to outdoor karting.

“I started outdoor karting around my local tracks, like Forest Edge near Thruxton and Clay Pigeon down in Dorset,” Olli says. “I went on to compete in the national championships from there.”

Olli still remembers the first time he sat in an outdoor kart.

"Suddenly, I’ve gone from being in this indoor, quite slow kart to this outdoor kart with smoking petrol and a loud engine,” he remembers. “My parents were very nervous and they bought me all the protective gear, which meant I was strapped in a kart like a mummy.” As time went on, Olli began to remove some of the protective gear and as he felt freer in the kart, he started to enjoy it a lot more. He competed in UK championships and secured some podiums, then the following year, he went to the Bahamas with the championship he was competing in at the time.

“It was like a festival of speed with some other drivers, and it was awesome,” Olli says. “Then, as I moved up through karting, in my final years there, I was fighting for the European championship and the world championship.”

For the 2016 season, Olli competed in the Ginetta Juniors category on his pathway to reaching the peak of motorsport.

“My goal at the time, like 99% of drivers, was to be in Formula 1,” Olli says. “But my goal definitely changed as I got more mature and moved through racing.

“I did Ginetta’s purely to get out of karts and get some sort of idea of what it was like racing a car on a race track. The plan was I would always do Ginetta Juniors for that half a year, get used to racing cars, and then proceed onto Formula 4.”

During his time in ADAC F4 in 2018, Olli raced at the Hockenheimring as part of the Formula 1 support package.

“It was the first time I’d been on a race weekend with Formula 1, which was incredible,” he says. “All the cars are there, like the fans are there, even though you’re racing at 8am in the morning and the track’s pretty quiet at that time, but you’re still there with all the teams, the security and the atmosphere.”

After completing in ADAC F4, British F4 and Italian F4, Olli moved to FIA Formula 3 for the 2020 season with Trident and, for 2021, made the move to PREMA.

During these years, Olli’s goals started to shift as he got to experience the F1 paddock and race events, as well as the other options that were available to him.

“My goal changed from wanting to be an F1 driver to wanting to be a professional racing driver,” Olli explains.

“It wasn’t Formula 1 or nothing. I love racing, so that was what I wanted to do.”

In 2022, Olli made the move to Formula 2 with Campos Racing and support from the Alpine Formula 1 Team, as part of the Alpine Academy. “My goal had changed from being an F1 driver to being able to do whatever I can to make a living out of this and look at every opportunity that is given to me,” he says. “In a sense, I did achieve my goal. I did drive a Formula 1 car multiple times. I worked within F1, with Alpine.”

Olli turned to endurance racing in 2021 when he made his prototype debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the 8 Hours of Bahrain. As part of the ARC Bratislava team, Olli and his teammates finished 11th in the race, in the LMP2 category. In 2022, he returned to Bahrain for the rookie test, driving the Richard Mille Racing Team LMP2 car.

For the 2023 season, Olli made his full-time move to endurance racing with Alpine and competed in the World Endurance Championship with the Alpine Elf Team. His time in single seaters was an extremely different experience compared to endurance racing; in single seater categories, the races are shorter, drivers make more heroic moves and overtakes, and the biggest difference is that you are the only driver of your car.

“In endurance, you could be in second and think you could get the lead, but there’s two hours left in the race, so a heroic overtake would be really risky,” Olli explains. “It might be my final lap in the race because I’m going to do a pit stop and give the car to my teammate, but there’s actually two hours left of the race.

“That’s where the teamwork comes in. I trust my teammates. I got the car in this position, but he’d finish the job. In single seaters, you don’t have that.”

In his endurance career so far, Olli has raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of motorsport’s most iconic events. The event spans almost two weeks, with drivers taking on several stints into the night.

“Le Mans is crazy. It’s one of my favourite events, one of my favourite races I’ve ever done,” Olli says. “It’s a mental game of pushing as hard as you can for two or three hours then you get out and immediately have to react and try to switch all of that off. 

“I’ll pass the car to my teammate, try and sleep for 30 minutes, then I have to go jump back in the car in the middle of the night.” 

At the 2023 event, Olli competed in the LMP2 class with the Alpine Elf Team alongside André Negrão and Memo Rojas, and they finished ninth in their class. Fast forward to 2024, and Olli competed in the same class again but with Algarve Pro Racing – his current team for the 2025 ELMS season – and finished eighth in class with Roman De Angelis and Matthias Kaiser as his teammates.

“As an event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is amazing,” Olli says. “You’re driving at 2am, it’s the middle of the night, but there’s fireworks going off, there’s over 300,000 people there.

“It’s like you’re on a different planet. It’s honestly one of the best events.”

Prior to making his debut in endurance racing, Olli made his Formula 1 debut with Alpine at Silverstone in 2022. After joining the Alpine Academy earlier that year, Olli took to the track at the Home of British Motorsport in the Alpine A521.

“It was incredible,” Olli says. “I’d done my whole career up until that point wanting to drive a Formula 1 car, and then the test came around relatively quickly.”

“To do it at Silverstone was awesome. Silverstone is an incredible track and I was so blown away with how amazing it was. It was perfect conditions for a Formula 1 car and it was incredible to have done it at home.”

More recently, ahead of ELMS returning to Silverstone after a six-year break, Olli drove an LMP2 car in the Northamptonshire countryside.

“The driving style is quite similar,” he says. “The main difference is the Formula 1 car is going a lot quicker but from a driving point of view, I’m doing the same inputs.

“A corner that I was doing flat out in a Formula 1 car was a brake in a Formula 2 car and now in an LMP2 car, that’s a brake and down one gear. It’s just everything on a different level of speed, aggression and downforce.”

Away from racing, Olli has visited Silverstone on numerous occasions, either for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix as a fan, to race in F2 or F3, or for events as part of the BRDC.

After being shown around the F1 paddock at Silverstone when he was racing in Italian and German F4, Olli knew that he couldn’t wait to compete in Formula 3 and Formula 2 at Silverstone.

“To join the BRDC when I was in Formula 2 as a Rising Star was amazing,” he says. “To be able to race at Silverstone as a BRDC Rising Star and to have their logo on my car was so cool.

“And now, to be a member of the club is amazing.”

The 2025 Goodyear 4 Hours of Silverstone has been long awaited by fans and drivers alike. The last 4 Hours of Silverstone event was held in 2019. For Olli, the race weekend is his first event at home in a long time.

“It’s been too long since I raced at Silverstone, and since ELMS and other endurance championships have been there,” he says. “It’s such an iconic track, a track that should always be on any FIA or international high-level championship calendar.

“You have Spa, you have Monza, you have Monaco and you have Silverstone. If you’re going to go to those iconic circuits, you have to come here. And I can’t wait to race at home.”

With friends, family and fans headed to Silverstone to support Olli from the grandstands and the garage, he is very much looking forward to the event, especially after a strong ELMS season so far in 2025.

“I can’t wait to be on the starting grid before the race and hear the British national anthem,” Olli says. “Seeing all the home flags and the home support is something that you miss when you don’t have a home race and I can’t wait to have that feeling again next weekend. It means so much to me to be able to have that support at home.”

Olli’s 2025 European Le Mans Series season with Algarve Pro Racing, alongside Kriton Lendoudis and Alex Quinn, started with the Asian Le Mans Series, where they finished fourth in the Championship.

They carried their momentum forwards into the European season and so far, have finished P2 in Barcelona, P3 at Imola and took the top step at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps last time out taking the championship lead.

“The Championship is going well, it’s really close,” Olli says. “Some of the best endurance drivers in the world are doing ELMS this year, and are in ProAm, so it’s cool to be racing against some of these big names.”

Working with and sharing the car with teammates is something Olli had never been exposed to until he made his endurance racing debut. “I like being able to work with my teammates and have that shared responsibility, that shared power in the car,” he explains. “When you work together as a team, you build that trust and that momentum together.

“If one of you trips or falls, then your teammates are there to back you up and help you, which is not at all something that happens in single seaters.”

Last year, Olli was driving with Alex Lynn, who has experience in Formula 1, Formula E and endurance. This year, his teammate is Alex Quinn, a driver he’s known since they both started karting in 2012. Sharing a car with him on track is quite the full circle moment for Olli.

“In my first year of racing with him at local club events, we would travel to karting tracks together and I even stayed at his house, then as we went into car racing, we sort of parted ways,” Olli says. “I didn’t see him for five or six years until last year, when we were in the same team and now I’m sharing a car with him.”

Olli, Alex and their Greek teammate Kriton Lendoudis are currently leading the European Le Mans Series Championship with 63 points, and are hoping to continue their winning streak into the Silverstone round, and Portimão in October.

“We want to win the championship,” Olli says. “As long as we keep performing to our best, keep maximising everything we do and keep trusting each other, then whatever happens will happen.

“I want to get to the end of the year and know that we put it all on the line and performed to our max, and we can be happy about that.”

After his goal shifted from becoming a Formula 1 driver, Olli has taken the world of endurance racing by storm. Now, as a professional racing driver, his goal is clear:

“I want to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans,” Olli says. “I want to win overall in the highest category. I want to win Daytona, and I want to be World Champion.”

Find out everything you need to know about the return of ELMS at Silverstone ahead of its return to the Home of British Motorsport this weekend. Make sure you’re up to date with endurance racing at Silverstone and buy your tickets now.