Ken Block's daughter carries on his legacy: Racing prodigy Lia stars in new Netflix show F1 Academy two years after her father's death in tragic snowmobile accident

Daily Mail​

28-05-2025

As the eldest daughter of one of the world's greatest rally legends, it's perhaps no surprise that Lia Block could reach the pedals of a car at the age of five and that her 'first love' was motorsports.
And as she appears this week in new Netflix series, F1: The Academy, 18-year-old Lia, who is from Utah, certainly seems to be following in her father's footsteps.
Ken Block was known globally for his ferocious driving packed with exhilarating stunts that were watched by tens of millions on his YouTube channels, as well as his prolific professional rallying career.
But in November 2023, the action sports star, 55, met with tragedy when his snowmobile overturned and landed on top of him in Utah, and he died at the scene.
Then aged just 16, Lia was left heartbroken, writing in an emotional tribute that she'd lost her 'whole world' - her 'best friend', as well as her father.
Having grown up travelling around the world as she watched him in race paddocks, Lia was forced to continue her motorsports journey without her beloved mentor.
Despite facing such a devastating loss, she's gone from strength to strength, having been crowned the youngest American Rally Association Champion in 2023 at just 17 and has now traded in the world of off-road racing for the challenge of open wheel with Williams.
Appearing in the first episode of the new F1 Academy, the racing prodigy reflected on her special relationship with her father now that she's following in his footsteps - though admitted she wishes she could just be a 'race-car driver' without all the pressures of social media.
'My dad was a race-car driver as well in Rallycross,' Lia explained and admitted she now understands why he found it so 'tiring'.
She said: 'Motorsports is definitely my first love. When I was like, five or six, I was like, "hey Dad, look, I can touch the pedals".
'Watching my dad being in race paddocks, it was a big part of my life. I think it just made me know, "oh yes, this is actually what I want to do."
Lia was 15 when she did her first rally, winning each one and eventually won the championship - becoming the first woman to ever do so.
'Yeah, I'm a girl, and I can still beat you,' she told viewers, demonstrating her father's fierce spirit.
In the series, Lia joins Susie Wolff, a former professional driver and now managing director of F1 Academy, helping young women to enter the world of motorsport which, the series admits, is ' dominated by men '.
Lia began karting for fun at five years old and sat behind the wheel of an off-road car by age ten.
After traveling around the world with her father, Ken - the founder of the Hoonigan racing team and one of motorsport's most popular figures - she began showing interest in pursuing racing herself by the age of eleven.
She said her father was her 'whole world' and her 'best friend'
'My dad always opened the doors for me, but never forced me to do anything,' she told DailyMail.com in an interview last year. 'So I went off and tried every other sport I could, but eventually made it back to [motorsport] when I was about 10 or 11.
'So I think that made me want it even more because I had tried all these different things, but coming back to motorsport was truly like I knew what I wanted to do.'
Once she decided to participate full-time, she went full throttle.
At 11, she began competing in off-road series' and began rallying at 15. By age 16, she had won the American Rally Association Championship with two races in hand in a modified rear-wheel drive Subaru BRZ.
In addition to her rallying pursuits, she also raced in nitrocross as well as in the electric rallying series Extreme E.
Other pursuits included winning her class in the Baja 1000 alongside her mother Lucy and racing her father's pink Porsche 911 dubbed the 'Hoonapigasus' up the Pikes Peak hill climb - before switching to open car for the F1 Academy.
However, her father wasn't there to watch her transition from the world of rallying to open-wheelers after his tragic passing in a snowmobile accident in January of 2023.
In November 2023, Williams approached her with an offer to join their driver academy - which she accepted. She joined ART Grand Prix for the 2024 season.
Lia has continued to post photos of her father in his memory to Instagran
She is equally as glamorous off the track as she is on racing day
'He was truly my whole world and the only person I ever looked up too,' Lia wrote in an emotional Instagram post the day after his passing. 'No matter what I did he was always there to support me.
'I can't believe how fast he was taken from all of us. No words can describe of how much of an amazing human my dad was, he lived so many lives, accomplished more in 55 years than most people could in 10 lifetimes, and lived his life to the absolute fullest every single day.'
She added: 'I didn't just lose my father, I lost my best friend.'
Just hours before the horrific accident in Utah, a proud Ken Block had boasted about his daughter Lia's achievements to his own Instagram followers.
The motoring legend posted a picture of Lia next to a 1985 Audi Quattro that she had purchased and restored herself.
The action star regularly boasted of his pride in his children to his eight million Instagram followers, particularly oldest daughter Lia and her motoring endeavours.
Lia also previously competed on her father's Hoonigan Racing team.
In his final Instagram post, Block said: 'The 4th and final episode of my 16-year-old daughter Lia buying, tearing down, rebuilding and now driving her '85 Audi Ur Quattro will be live at 8am PST tomorrow on my YouTube channel.
She is pictured in the new Netflix series, which is available to stream now
'Will her newly-refinished vintage Audi finally do a donut?? Or will this old car break in the attempt? Tune in to find out!'
In one of his most recent Instagram posts, Block had also shared his holiday trip surrounded by family in a snowy Canadian ski lodge.
The former rallying pro had posted a family photo with his wife Lucy, and three children, including Lia as he wished his followers a 'merry Christmas from the Blocks'.
Lia is still clearly close to her her mother Lucy, who appears alongside her in the Netflix show and regularly posts photographs with her younger siblings, Kira and Mika.
Giving Lucy a shoutout for her birthday last month, Lia wrote: 'Happy birthday to my amazing mom. I love you so much and thank you for all that you do for me. I would never be in my position without your guidance and support.'
Her mother replied: 'I can't wait to see you continue to crush your goals! You are a force! I love you. ❤️ thank you.'
Outside of racing, Lia enjoys cycling and playing golf and working out. She's also kept up her snowmobiling hobby, despite her father's accident.
Despite her newfound fame - Lia now boasts more than one million followers on Instagram - she remains humble, and is even shy of the camera.
Lia Block of United States and ART Grand Prix (57) drives on track during F1 Academy Testing at Circuit Zandvoort on April 17, 2024
Speaking in the Netflix show, Lia admitted she hadn't even heard of Good Morning American until a 'few weeks ago' and had to ask her mother what it was.
'I never really wanted to be in front of the camera,' she said.
'If social media wasn't a thing, I would much rather just be a race-car driver.'
In her interview with DailyMail.com last year, she described the transition from rallying to open-wheelers as 'starting from the ground up again' and says that she only had accumulated 20 days behind the wheel before the first F1 Academy race in Jeddah.
'I felt like I knew nothing. Obviously, doing a bit of karting when I was younger, I wasn't completely oblivious, but it was still a very steep learning curve.
'And also coming from competing at the top of rally in the US and winning the Championship, I was used to winning. I wasn't used to being at the bottom.
'So it was quite different going to open-wheel racing and having to learn everything and everything be so new.'
Lia said she's honored to be among the first generations of drivers to take part in the all-women's series and says that her fellow competitors are 'very experienced, and they've raced against men all their life and they know how to hold their own.'
She does admit that she was surprised by the difference in experience on track, but says, 'it makes me more excited to keep learning because I want to surpass them.