Abbi Pulling’s eyes dance as she smiles, making manifest the philosophy she has adopted that has made her stand out this season as one of the brightest young talents in motorsport. “I believe a happy Abbi is a fast Abbi,” she says.
“So you will see me dancing round the paddock with my headphones on, pumping myself up. It has all come together and it’s showing on track.”
The approach has indeed paid off. The 21-year-old from Lincolnshire, part of the Alpine F1 team academy programme, is enjoying the best year of her career. She has dominated in the all-female F1 Academy series, leading the championship by 66 points from France’s Doriane Pin, having taken four wins and two second places in seven races. It is a lead she could further extend at the Dutch Grand Prix, with two races on Sunday due to bad weather, as the season reaches its midpoint.
At Brands Hatch this year she became the first woman to win a race in the British F4 championship, competing for Rodin, who also run her in the F1 Academy.
Pulling has always been quick but this season she has cycled remarkably strongly through the gears to reach another level. After surmounting some difficult times to come this far, there is a sense Pulling is now genuinely on track to fulfil her ambition of reaching Formula One. This year will play no small part, as the winner of the F1 Academy will receive a fully funded drive in the Formula Regional European series, another vital rung in moving up the ladder.
Pulling began karting when she was eight, took two national championships in 2017 and 2018 before moving up to Ginettas, then F4 and subsequently the all-female W Series. She impressed in her second season there before it failed financially, but in her second year in the F1 Academy and back in British F4, her form has been on a different level. So what changed?
“I have always had it in me,” she says. “I have always had the speed. I never quite put it together and I put a lot of pressure on myself. I am my own hardest critic. Any mistake I would make I would get really annoyed at it, focus on things that were out of my control.
“In the off-season I did a lot on my mental side. I took a step back, focused on what I can control, take a lot of weight off my shoulders, just enjoy it.”
Her dream remains a seat in F1 but Pulling knows she is also part of a larger, fundamental change in motorsport. It is incremental but it is happening. F1 has not had a female driver in a grand prix since Lella Lombardi in Austria in 1976 and the F1 Academy was created and funded by F1’s owners to promote women in motorsport. It is putting women in cars, giving them the most important support of all: time on track behind the wheel.
Pulling believes the impact is already being felt. “The attention the F1 Academy gets is incredible. It’s also making an impact down the motorsport ladder,” she says. “There are so many more females than when I was in karting. I was the only one in my karting class, now it’s three or four – it doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s progress. It’s nice to be part of that movement, that change.
Six F1 Academy races remain after this weekend, two at each meeting in Singapore, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and Pulling remains on course to finish on top and ready to build on the momentum. “I’ve been riding a wave, who knows what the future holds,” she says. “F1 as the end goal would be amazing. I am still targeting that.”
For the moment it is impossible not to feel enthused by happy Abbi proving so successfully to be fast Abbi. Make it or not, there is also pride in being part of a transformation that will ultimately ensure that a woman does indeed race again in F1. “It’s a matter of when not if,” she says. “It’s just a matter of time.”
