F1 Academy levels up: Everything you need to know about the 2025 season

New York Times

21-03-2025

Winter break is finally over for F1 Academy, the all-women racing series that competes in the Formula One pyramid. The 2025 season marks the junior category's third year, and plenty of changes have been made.
F1 Academy features drivers between 16 and 25, but they can only compete in the series for two years. As a result, the grid looks very different from last year, with 2024 champion Abbi Pulling, Nerea Martí and the Al Qubaisi sisters (to name a few) departing after racing for two years. The grid is also expanding, with Hitech TGR joining and fielding three cars like the other five teams.
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Six drivers from the 2024 season are returning, and six have never competed in F1 Academy. The wild card entry, one of Hitech TGR's three entries, will be featured in all seven rounds. The race weekends also look different, with reverse grids returning, and the global calendar will feature three new locations.
There's plenty to unpack ahead of F1 Academy's third season. Let's dive into what you need to know.
Six teams. Seventeen full-time drivers. A wild card entry each round.
ART Grand Prix, Campos Racing, MP Motorsport, Prema Racing, Rodin Motorsport and Hitech TGR are fielding three cars each, but there are only 17 drivers with full-time seats. The wild card entry is returning this year and will be featured each round.
The wild card entries are one-off runs by drivers from the race's region, such as Chinese driver Shi Wei competing in the season opener at Shanghai International Circuit. What is different compared to last season is that the wild card drivers can score points for both the driver and team standings.
Doriane Pin, who finished second in the drivers' championship last year, Tina Hausmann, Maya Weug, Chloe Chambers, Lia Block and Aurelia Nobels are returning for their second and final seasons. F1 Academy fans may recognize a few other faces, including Chloe Chong, who competed in the 2023 season, or four of the 2024 wild card entries (Nina Gademan, Alisha Palmowski, Ella Lloyd and Courtney Crone) now competing full-time.
But there are several rookies, including Alba Larsen (who was mentored by former F1 driver Kevin Magnussen), Emma Felbermayr (who is navigating her first single-seater season) and Rafaela Ferreira (who became the first woman to secure a podium finish and win in Brazilian F4).
The 10 F1 teams still support 10 drivers on the grid, as is Red Bull Ford. Other partners supporting a driver include American Express, Charlotte Tilbury, Puma, Tommy Hilfiger and TAG Heuer.
Heading into the 2025 season, Pin is the favorite after securing 217 points last campaign, 121 points behind Pulling. Weug, though, saw a late-season surge in performance, winning the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi.
The 2025 calendar, which aligns with F1's schedule, will feature 14 races across seven rounds, six countries and three continents, expanding the series' global reach. Only one venue, Zandvoort in the Netherlands, has been part of all three calendars, while three new tracks will join this year. One of those locations is Las Vegas, where F1 Academy had a presence last year during the F1 weekend.
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'It was one of those questions of, 'Where do we go racing?'. To put a season finale here, it's the dream for everyone,' said Emily Prazer, F1 chief commercial officer and president and CEO of the Las Vegas GP, last year. 'We don't have three or four different support races for F1 Academy to compete with. It will give it the exposure it deserves.
'The U.S. audience are really obsessed with women's sport, and we love that, so we wanted to marry it together and own it. Obviously, they'll be in Miami as well. So it gives a really nice narrative, May and November to start and close it out.'
F1 Academy race weekends stretch across three days, and a maximum of 39 points is up for grabs for the drivers, while the team could secure 86 points. Changes have been made to the format for 2025 — the reverse grid is returning.
The calendar currently shows one practice session (40 minutes long), one qualifying session (30 minutes long), and two races each weekend. The top eight drivers in qualifying will be reversed for the starting grid of Race 1, while ninth to 18th will stay where they qualified. Points will only be awarded to the top eight finishers of Race 1, and the driver who sets the fastest lap among the top eight will receive an additional point.
Race 2 will feature a standard starting grid based on the qualifying results. The points distribution is the same as F1 for the second race, and two points will be given to the driver who starts at pole position. Like Race 1, the driver who sets the fastest lap will receive a point, though they'll need to finish in the top 10.
This change is anticipated to make it harder for a single driver to dominate across the season as Pulling did in 2024. But it also aligns F1 Academy with other junior categories. Reverse grids are used in Formula Two and Formula Three sprint races.
The car will remain unchanged from last year. The drivers will race in identical cars similar to Formula Four cars, such as the chassis designed by Tatuus Automobili, which is the same as British, Italian, and Spanish F4s. However, a noticeable difference further aligns F1 Academy with F1. At the request of Liberty Media and F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, the front and rear wings were adjusted to be more similar to F1.
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'We found that as a good compromise between what we can do and what we cannot do on a Formula Four because the rear wing is not homologated,' Tatuus CEO Giovanni Delfino said in 2024. 'So you can do more or less what you want in terms of homologation, even if it's not recognized as a Formula Four wing. In (the) case of the front wing, then we had to keep some of the design of the Formula Four because it's linked to the noses.'
This level of car allows drivers to train and adapt while they gain crucial on-track experience at F1 circuits. As for the specifics, the cars have 1.4 liter turbo-charged, four-cylinder engines and can hit top speeds of 240km/h (149.129 mph).
'If you want to make it safe and at the same time interesting enough to really train them and to allow them to really step from go-karts to maybe Formula Regional or Euro Cup or F3, you need this in-between,' F1 Academy competition manager Delphine Biscaye said in 2024. 'F1 Academy is giving them a huge training on track but also off track with all the support they have from the F1 team or from their F1 Academy team as well.'
There are quite a few ways fans can follow along with F1 Academy this season, starkly contrasting year one, when they had to either follow along on social media for 'live multi-media updates' or monitor the live timings via F1 Academy's website. Highlight videos were released, and a 15-minute program aired midweek.
Now, F1 Academy will be aired live in over 160 territories (here is the full list of broadcasters), or fans can watch qualifying and the races on the F1 Academy platforms on YouTube and X or on F1 TV. One big update coming into 2025 was that the beIN Media Group extended its deal until 2033, broadcasting F1 Academy throughout the Middle East, North Africa (MENA), and Turkey. For those who watch via ESPN, the media company will have live coverage on its platforms, including ESPN+.