Away from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, an important moment for the future of motorsport takes place this weekend.
It is a shame, really, that it will be overshadowed by the fourth Formula 1 Grand Prix of the season in Baku. But 2,000 miles east, Austria's Red Bull Ring is playing host to the first ever F1 Academy race weekend.
The W Series was an all-female racing series which enjoyed some success, but ran out of money last year and its future looks uncertain. But there are key differences between it and the F1 Academy – most notably, it's run and funded by the sport itself.
It provides a clear ladder up the single-seater ranks, as an official feeder series to Formula 3. It has five teams which already compete in those FIA junior categories and have a wealth of experience in doing so. And it has a potential future superstar named Abbi Pulling.
Her name may already be familiar to many, given she spent a season and a half racing in W Series. Jamie Chadwick dominated by winning all three championships in a row before heading off to America for a shot at Indy Lights, but Pulling secured three podiums as a teenager to make people take notice of another female British racing talent.
Now she is the poster girl for the F1 Academy. And, having only turned 20 just last month, time is very much on her side in the race to become the woman who breaks all the barriers to one day become the first female racer to make a race start in Formula 1 since Lella Lombardi in 1976.
The last of the Italian's 12 F1 starts came at the Osterreichring. How fitting, then, that F1 Academy begins at the very same circuit in Spielberg, now owned and operated by Red Bull.
How did Pulling get here? "I struck lucky with my dad," she tells Mirror Sport with a grin. That detail could be applied to most of the things she said in the interview. The Lincolnshire-born speed addict loves racing – and talking about it.
Referring to her father Andy, she continues: "He loves motorsport – it's what he lives for. I was lucky enough to have a dad who would take me every weekend to a go-kart track. I remember, a few years in a row we went to the track on New Years'! An icy, snowy cold day where he could have been in bed having a hot chocolate, but he wanted to go to a track with me and help me get quicker.
"He never pushed me to it – it was never forced upon me, it was always my choice. Even when I was winning British championships in karting and he was my mechanic, the last person I spoke to, the last thing he'd say to me as I was rolling away was, 'Have fun'. He'd even say it now!"
Pulling began karting competitively around 10 years ago and soon made a name for herself on the British motorsport landscape. Back-to-back national junior championships successes saw her to progress to cars long before she was old enough to hold a road licence.
Since beginning in single-seaters in British F4, she has gone from strength to strength. Funding struggles throughout her career have hampered her progress somewhat, but with help from coach Alice Powell she is now a fully-fledged member of the Alpine driver academy, has experience behind the wheel of Formula 3 and F1 cars and is the face of this new all-female series.
" I want to perform to give myself the best opportunity to climb through the ranks," she said. " Male or female, you have to do that. For myself, it's quite dire in the sense that I don't have millions of pounds from my family, so it's hard to progress – even if you have the year that you want. I'll just do my best every time I go out on track and, if it's not enough, I learn from it and try to improve next time I'm in the car.
"That's the most important thing this year – to make sure that I'm continuously learning from everything that I'm doing. The F1 Academy provides a great package with lots of seat time to develop us so we can go and race against the boys in F3. I want to be racing against the best, so that's where I want to be. Fingers crossed for next year!"
Despite having her own ambitions to focus upon, Pulling know she has a role to play in the push to increase diversity in all aspects of motorsport. That has to begin at the grassroots level, and her Alpine team is playing a key role in that charge with its Rac(H)er programme.
" Alpine have really pushed the boat out in making sure they help to develop younger females. I wish I was eight years old again!" she said. "There are so many opportunities. They realised they need to get them in young and help them from a young age, providing that assistance and guidance to make sure they're taking the right career steps and understand the machinery they're driving.
"It's going to be an exciting year for the Rac(H)er programme and I'm happy to be a part of it in a small way. When I was that age I looked up to Valentino Rossi! I never had that female role model... and you've got to see it to believe it.
" There's a lot going on at the moment to promote females in motorsport, and in sport as a whole. It's a good time to be a female in motorsport and the development that the F1 Academy and Rodin Carlin provide is great."
Despite her own fearless ambition, and her age, Pulling is wise enough to understand that playing a role in helping the next generation to scale the heights of the motorsport world will be a very fine second prize if she never gets the chance to live her Formula 1 dream
She added: "I hope it makes me the one to make it and break the barriers! But if it's not me, it'll be that 10-year-old who's watching and who will do it in a few years' time. If we don't do it, it'll be the next generation so the important thing is to nurture those talents and give them the best opportunities possible from a young age."
But before anything else, it's down to business for Pulling in the F1 Academy. She was flying in pre-season testing and qualified on pole in both sessions ahead of the three races this weekend, but had those stripped away after checks of the Rodin Carlin cars found they were using a "non-homologated part" which constituted an "unintentional technical infringement".
"It's the inaugural year of the F1 Academy and no-one really knows what to expect," she says wisely. "That's the beauty of it. No-one is more prepared than anyone else – everyone is in the same boat, which levels the playing field a bit. The more experienced drivers might not be as far ahead as we expect!
"But a successful season for me would be to get a few race wins under my belt. It's been a long time since I stood on the top step. I want to bring home some good and memorable races back to the team, myself and my family.
"They've put a lot into getting me to this point so I want to repay them with as many great experiences as possible. I want to win the championship and I'm in a good team to do that with all the tools I need – I just need to get it done. I'd like to be in that title fight."
