Many budding racing drivers have grown up playing the Formula 1 game, but one British teenager has turned that dream into a reality. Alisha Palmowski made an immediate impression in single-seaters by winning the GB4 season-opener at Oulton Park in March, and has added two more victories since to remain in title contention with two rounds remaining.
“It sounds silly, but I've always driven the F1 game with no assists on, so in terms of feeding the throttle and bleeding off the brakes, I've been doing that for years on a sim,” the 17-year-old explains. “It's obviously completely different but, when I jumped in a single-seater, I felt at home.”
Palmowski, a BRDC Rising Star who is among the final 10 candidates for the 2024 Silverstone Autosport BRDC Award, began karting in 2015 having become “hooked instantly” after a family trip during the school holidays.
“I've grown up with the influence of motorsport around me because my great grandad was a BriSCA F1 stock car driver,” she says. “I was staying with my grandparents, and they just thought as a fun activity they would take me to a local indoor track. I had no idea what I was doing!”
After starting out in Daytona karts, Palmowski achieved success on the national scene, finishing overall junior runner-up two years running in the Daniel Ricciardo Series, which is backed by the F1 ace.
“It was quite a big step up,” she relates. “It was just me, my mum and dad going round with our trailer, they were my mechanics and helped me so much. [Ricciardo] came to Whilton Mill in 2019 to support us all, he spoke to every single one of the drivers. He made us all feel like the real deal.”
Palmowski’s big break came after being awarded a Ginetta Junior scholarship for 2022, having been selected from a field of over 60 drivers. She competed for two years in the entry-level sportscar series, scoring 10 podiums and finishing fifth overall in her sophomore campaign.
“It was the biggest confidence boost,” she reflects on winning the scholarship. “Without that opportunity I would never have made the transition to car racing. They're incredibly loose cars so the control that teaches you, it's unmatched.
“I learned in my second year to get my elbows out and toughen up. It's formed me into the driver I am now.”
"It's nice to have my name on the map, people are noticing what I'm achieving now"
Alisha Palmowski
Remaining with Elite Motorsport for the step up to GB4, that car control she learned from Ginetta Junior came in handy at the third round at Donington Park where, after being hit by another competitor at the start of the second contest and suffering a bent suspension arm, she remarkably wrestled a car with a right-rear wheel visibly pointing in the wrong direction to a ninth-place finish on a wet track.
Prior to that, Palmowski’s debut win at round one had already earned her wide scale recognition. “My phone blew up,” she recalls. “I'm still replying to messages now from that win. I had hundreds of notifications from people like Karun Chandhok and Susie Wolff. It's nice to have my name on the map, people are noticing what I'm achieving now.”
Palmowski’s sim racing activities have evolved since those early years playing the F1 game and, like many drivers, she now uses iRacing to help prepare for race weekends. That has helped her display some impressive consistency this year, her double pole position at Snetterton in July achieved with two identical lap times.
“There's a fine line in my opinion, I think you can very easily over-sim,” she says. “As good as sims are, they are never 100% realistic to how the car is, you can never get the movement sensation, but equally [they are beneficial] in terms of learning tracks, learning gears, racecraft as well. I'm getting more and more involved in sim racing, so it's a great positive.”
As well as chasing the overall crown, she looks set to be the highest-placed female driver and receive a €30,000 prize towards a seat in the all-female F4 series F1 Academy.
“It's definitely something we're considering, being a support series to F1, being on a global stage, I think it would be such a great opportunity,” says Palmowski, who is taking things “year by year” as she aims to climb up the single-seater ladder.
“I've got to perform and deliver results in order to have opportunities in the future so it's very much on my back as to where I can get. I'd love to be a Formula 1 driver, but I'm sure everybody says that.
“I’m being realistic, but it's OK to dream. If that opportunity is available, I'll keep working as hard as possible because I'd really like a female role model to make it to the pinnacle of motorsport.”
Palmowski believes that such a role model is necessary to help more young females get involved in karting, despite already noticing a significant increase in numbers since she last competed in karts three years ago.
“My whole karting career, whether it was a test day or race day, I was always one of two, maybe three females at max,” she recalls. “I've just been to the Shenington kart circuit to do some demo runs in a historic go-kart. There was a 290-driver entry but every other driver that took their helmet off was a female, so it was a big shock to see already how much those numbers are rising. It's a step in the right direction but there's still a lot of work to be done on that front.”
Sitting third in the championship, Palmowski’s immediate focus is on September’s final two GB4 rounds of the season at Donington and Brands Hatch.
“We’ve still got another six races to go so anything can happen,” she concludes. “We’ve got to be clean and considered but, equally, we’ve got to go for it because we are hunting at the minute, we’re not defending, so we’ll give it everything and fingers crossed we can be in that fight for Brands Hatch and the final race.”
