It’s hard to find a driver who had a better season than Abbi Pulling. The 21-year-old Briton burst onto the scene earlier this year winning 7 of the first 11 races in the all-female F1 Academy, wrapping up her driver's championship this past weekend in Qatar before the series finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend. As if that wasn't enough, Pulling made history in May by becoming the first woman to win a race in British F4.
“I’ve been really enjoying my time this season,” said Pulling. “When you’re at the top of the table, you’re not going to be complaining!”
Free time is hard to come by these days for Pulling, with most of her calendar booked up with simulator or fitness sessions. That may actually be the secret to her overwhelming success.
“The workouts are pretty nonstop, I will admit,” Pulling said. “But it’s a good thing, really, because in motorsport, you’re always training for the next step. I’m in F4 at the moment, but I’m making sure I’m ready for the opportunity to get into F3.”
And although she’s been enjoying all of her victories and podiums, she’s even more pleased to be part of something bigger than herself.
Motorsport caught up with Pulling to talk about her powerhouse season, the awkwardness of neck training in public, and the driver equivalent of racket-tossing.
What’s a typical week look like for you, from a fitness perspective?
Yesterday, unfortunately, I didn’t get a workout session in, since I was making content. I’m a little annoyed by that, but you need a rest day once in a while.
Today, I’m driving the simulator to get in some more technical training, and then tomorrow I’m going to a university to do heat chamber training, then a gym session after that on both Thursday and Friday. And often I’ll do some cardio on the weekend.
Heat chamber training sounds intense. How hot are we talking?
About 41-degree Celsius (~106-degrees Fahrenheit). You spin out for an hour, sweat your heart out, and try to get used to it! A big thing is sweating—the more you sweat, the better you regulate your core temperature.
You mentioned that strength and conditioning are more your speed. What are you usually focusing on during that?
So, in my previous program, I used to work on separate muscle groups. But now I’m doing full body, so it’s quite brutal! At the moment, it’s full-body sessions with cardio in between that. Some days, depending on how busy I am, I’ll get a dual session in: strength in the morning, cardio in the afternoon. That all depends on the ol’ schedule, though.
We always see Formula 1 drivers focusing on their neck training. How much does that factor into your workouts?
That’s mixed in with my strength and conditioning, and we usually end on that. We end on either core or neck — and, for neck, you’ve gotta do all four angles. It can be quite time consuming, but really necessary.
Motorsports are quite unique with the neck training, and you maybe can look a bit stupid in the gym. Fortunately, I’m usually in Alpine’s gym, so everyone knows what I’m doing—but it’s when you’re in a commercial gym that you get some stares!
Sports are obviously not just physical. How do you stay mentally sharp throughout the season?
I do a lot mentally, actually. I work with a company called Gazing Performance Systems, with a guy called Martin. He’s helped me out a lot, and I’ve worked with him for three or four years now. It’s a part of sport that is often overlooked, but when you compete in such a high-pressure, intense environment, you have to be the best in all aspects. With your mentality, it all takes a toll, and even that extra 1% you can gain on the rest of the competition can be what makes the difference. I think this year, I’ve put a really big emphasis on mental health, and it’s definitely showing on track, for sure.
What do you work on, from a mental perspective?
Lots of different things. We review race weekends: What could have been better, mentally? What did I do well, and what do I need to be ready for at the next event? And then we have strategies in place. For example: red to blue. If you’re in the red, you’re being unproductive, so it’s all about ways to bring yourself back into the blue.
Now, in a race car, you’re making split-second decisions, so you have to reset quickly. As opposed to something like, say, tennis, where you could throw a tennis racket and get refocused. In a car, you don’t want to be throwing a steering wheel, since that wouldn’t end well! You need to find the methods that work for you, and everyone’s different.
At the same time, some people say you shouldn’t throw a tennis racket — that doing so means you’re not strong mentally. But if that’s their way of resetting and it works for them, there’s no problem in that. Other than you have to pay a few hundred quid for a new tennis racket!
So it’s really all about refocusing and resetting as quickly as you can.
Yeah, it’s systems like that, and knowing what you can and can’t control. Motorsport is really unique because there’s more out of your control than in it. So you have to keep in mind what you know you can influence — and if there’s something you can’t control, there’s no point in letting that effect your next race.
It’s obviously been a great year for you, and you’ve generated a lot of buzz. Reaching Formula 1 is at the top of most drivers’ aspirations, but what are some of your future goals?
Yeah, Formula 1 is the dream, and I’ll keep pushing to get as close as I can. But I’m open-minded if other opportunities were to present themselves. There’s endurance racing — WEC and Hypercars — and Formula E, just to name a few. I think some drivers can be quite tunnel-visioned towards Formula 1 and turn down other opportunities that they may end up regretting.
And I’m sure you’re pleased to see women in motorsports getting way more attention thanks to F1 Academy.
I constantly say that I wish I was eight years old again. I was winning championships and doing a really good job in go-karting but was never really looked at, to be honest, by junior teams or sponsors. Nowadays if I were doing that, I think I’d have been what you might call… hot property! So things have definitely changed for the better, and it’s such a great time to be a woman in motorsport.
