F1 Academy is entering its third season in 2025, after a successful 2024 campaign, which saw Abbi Pulling take the title in dominant fashion.
As the series’ visibility and popularity has continued to grow, there are some changes taking place for this season, which look to provide more opportunities for female racers, and make the on-track action even more dynamic.
Teams
There’s a new team joining the grid, Hitech Grand Prix, who will race three cars – two for full-time drivers, one for wildcard entries.
The larger grid means more talented female drivers will be given the opportunity to race and showcase their skills.
On announcing Hitech’s entry into the series, managing director Susie Wolff said via F1 Academy’s official website: “It’s clear to us that change is already in motion, and this expansion reflects not just the growing talent pool of drivers ready to make the step up but also the incredible growth of F1 Academy as a platform to develop female talent.”
Hitech is a well-established team, founded by Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes and also competing in Formula 2 and Formula 3.
Chinese driver Shi Wei has already been announced by the series as the first wildcard entry in Shanghai.
Drivers
As F1 Academy has a two-year limit, some drivers from the 2024 grid are no longer able to compete in the series. Reigning champion Abbi Pulling was awarded a fully funded GB3 seat with Rodin Motorsport, but the prize for this year’s champion is yet to be announced.
There are many new additions to the grid, with 2024 wildcard entries Nina Gademan, Ella Lloyd, Alisha Palmowski and Courtney Crone taking full-time seats in 2025.
Gademan will race with the Alpine livery as part of Prema’s line-up, having already impressed in the 2024 F1 Academy season. She raced as Prema’s wildcard in Zandvoort and finished fourth in both races, although a 10-second penalty demoted her to 10th in race two.
Lloyd was a wildcard entry in Singapore and took a double points finish that weekend. She also competed in British F4 last year and took four podium finishes, including three second places. She is supported by McLaren and is one of Rodin’s drivers for 2025.
Palmowski dons the Red Bull overalls for this season and is part of Campos’ all-Red Bull line-up, alongside Chloe Chambers, supported by Red Bull Ford, and Rafaela Ferreira, backed by RB. Last year was her first season of single-seater racing, in GB4, but Palmowski still finished second. She was a wildcard entry in Qatar and finished fifth in race one.
Crone will race with the Haas livery as the team’s second American driver in the series. She was a wildcard entry for Miami, finishing 14th and 11th in the two races that weekend. She teams up with Aurelia Nobels and Lia Block to finalise ART’s line-up.
Emma Felbermayr will be supported by Sauber and lines up with Lloyd and Chloe Chong at Rodin. She will also be racing in Spanish F4 in 2025. Alba Larsen, ex-Haas driver Kevin Magnussen’s protegé, takes her place at MP alongside Weug and Joanne Ciconte, who makes her series debut in the F1 Academy-liveried car – having spent last year, her debut year in single-seaters, in Australian F4, Central European Zone F4, Spanish F4 and Formula Winter Series.
Ferreira steps into the Campos car as RB’s representative. She is a multiple race winner in Brazilian F4, having become the series’ first ever female podium scorer in 2024. Canadian driver Nicole Havrda races for Hitech with the American Express livery, having previously competed in Formula Regional Americas with four podiums and a sixth-place championship finish.
Aiva Anagnostiadis teams up with Havrda at Hitech. After forming part of the Alpine Rac(H)er Academy Programme in 2023, the Australian made her single-seater debut in Indian F4 in 2024, finishing 10th in the championship. She races under the TAG Heuer livery this season.
Chong is making her return to the series with Rodin after completing her debut F1 Academy season in 2023 as the youngest driver. After a year in British F4, she partners up with Charlotte Tilbury for her comeback.
|
Team
|
Drivers
|
|---|---|
|
Prema
|
 Nina Gademan |
|
Rodin
|
 Emma Felbermayr Ella Lloyd Chloe Chong |
|
Campos
|
 Chloe Chambers Rafaela Ferreira Alisha Palmowski |
|
MP
|
 Alba Larsen Joanne Ciconte |
|
ART
|
Courtney Crone Aurelia Nobels Lia Block |
|
Hitech
|
 Nicole Havrda Aiva Anagnostiadis |
|
Hitech wildcard entries
|
 Shi Wei (China round) |
Calendar
There are also new tracks making their way onto the calendar. Saudi Arabia, Miami, Zandvoort and Singapore remain, but China, Canada and Las Vegas are the new additions - Las Vegas serving as the season finale.
Upon announcing the new schedule, Susie Wolff said: “I am proud to announce our F1 Academy 2025 calendar, which demonstrates our continued commitment to taking the series to new heights, expanding our global reach and bringing our mission to an increasingly diverse and engaged global audience.
“Finishing our season in Las Vegas will be an iconic moment, and its addition to the calendar is testament to the wealth of support we receive from Formula 1 and Liberty Media.”
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Grand Prix
|
Date
|
|---|---|
|
China |
21-23 March
|
 Saudi Arabia |
18-20 April
|
|
Miami |
2-4 May
|
|
Canada |
13-15 June
|
|
Netherlands |
29-31 August
|
 Singapore |
3-5 October
|
|
Las Vegas |
20-22 November
|
Rules
There will also be some changes to the cars and rules, as Susie Wolff, speaking at the F1 Academy awards ceremony which took place at the Autosport Awards, said: “We’ve got a couple of updates coming which will make the racing hopefully a bit more exciting.”
One of these is the reintroduction of the reverse grid, which featured in the first F1 Academy season in 2023, but was missing from last year’s. But for 2025, this has made a return, with the top eight qualifiers being reversed for Race 1.
The points allocation has also been updated, with the top eight of Race 1 receiving points, starting with 10 for first, eight for second, then 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 for the remaining points-scoring positions. The grid order and points allocation for Race 2 will remain the same.
After champion Abbi Pulling stormed to victory in 2024, finishing 121 points ahead of second-placed Doriane Pin, the reverse grid and adjusted points allocation will make it more difficult for one driver to dominate.
Development
This year, F1 Academy is championing driver development more than ever with new performance and talent development officer Katie Denver.
She will be working with this year’s grid to support the drivers and help them to progress onto the next steps beyond F1 Academy. She also works in talent ID to identify potential drivers to move into F1 Academy in the future.
“I’m working with drivers when they’re actually in F1 Academy, so supporting their performance, looking at how we develop them on an individual basis, but also working across the grid and providing them with performance support,” Denver told Autosport.
“We work with the drivers to ensure that they really understand what their pathway is going to look like, and what their goals are beyond F1 Academy.
“It’s about setting realistic but challenging goals to keep them motivated and looking at all areas of their performance.
“Particularly looking at physical and mental skill development so that they are able to deal with the demands and the pressure that will come with the higher levels of motorsport.”
This year specifically, Denver will be “looking at individually, overall, strengths and weaknesses – and what we’ll be doing is guiding them to create firstly, an individual development plan, one which they own and they take responsibility for.
“Then it’s about signposting them, mentoring them and guiding them to sort of help fulfil those goals and uncover other performance gaps.
“From a group perspective throughout the year, there’ll be various different workshops and performance masterclasses on different topics to give them the tools and knowledge to equip them to unlock their own potential.”
In this article
Hannah Newman
F1 Academy
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