Finlay McSporran
Published: 18:07, 12 Feb 2024

Last year saw the inaugural season of F1 academy, an all female single seater championship with the goal of getting women closer to F1. It saw a decent level of success with last years champion Marta Garcia progressing to the Formula Regional European championship for 2024, a series which sits between F4 and F3 on the motorsport ladder.

2024 will see F1 Academy race at F1 weekends, alongside F2 and F3 as one of the support series. It also introduces a new rule where each F1 team has to sponsor at least one of the drivers, with some teams bringing in their own while other teams have sponsored drivers already in the series.

In this article we will look at the most exciting drivers on the 2024 grid.

Lia Block

Daughter of the late rallying legend Ken Block, Lia will represent the Williams F1 team in F1 academy this year. Block has raced fairly competitively in rally cars, competing in series like Extreme E and rallycross. This year saw the American racer make history when she became the youngest-ever American Rally Association Champion, winning the Open Two-Wheel Drive class.

At the age of just 17, Lia has already proved herself to be a very quick driver in rally cars, so it will be interesting to see how she compares in a single seater car.

Maya Weug

Maya was already a Ferrari junior driver before F1 academy, having joined the Italian outfit in 2021 as their first female young driver. Since then she’s raced in series like Italian F4 and Formula Regional European and has always looked quick, achieving a best finish of 6th at Spa last year.

However Maya has never really had the machinery underneath her to achieve good results, as most of her time in F4 and Formula Regional was spent at backmarker teams. This year however she’ll be racing in F1 academy with Prema, the team that took Marta Garcia to the title last year. This should give Maya a chance of fighting at the front.

Chloe Chambers

Chambers will represent Haas in F1 academy, the 19 year old American has competed in various forms of motorsport such as American F4, Porsche sprint and W series.

But her most famous achievement came at the penultimate round of last years Formula Regional Oceania championship as she took pole position and won the race becoming the first woman do so in not just the Oceanic championship, but any of the FIA’s Formula Regional championships.

Doriane Pin

20 year old Frenchwoman Doriane Pin is probably the most exciting woman joining the F1 academy grid this year. In 2022 she won the Ferrari challenge Europe series, a 14 race championship driving Ferrari sports cars. In 2023 she would race for Prema in the World endurance championship, helping her team to multiple podiums throughout the season.

She would also get her first taste of single seaters that year, finishing second in the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship with one win to her name.

Recently she’s been racing in the Formula 4 UAE championship, picking up a win at the most recent round at Yas Marina and is currently 8th in the standings out of 40 drivers. She’ll be racing in F1 academy with Prema, the same team she raced for in F4, alongside Maya Weug and Tina Hausmann.

The Al Qubaisi sisters

Both Hamda and Amna Al Qubaisi competed in F1 academy last season with MP motorsport and are sticking with them for 2024 with backing from Redbull.

The sisters are no stranger to silverware with Hamda becoming the first woman to score a podium in Italian F4 back in 2021, finishing 3rd behind F3 racer Leonardo Fornaroli and F1 reserve driver Oliver Bearman. She’s also picked up multiple wins in the F4 UEA championship, as well as last years F1 academy series.

As for Amna, she hasn’t had as much success in other categories as her younger sister but did show good pace last year in F1 academy, taking 2 wins and finishing 6th in the standings behind her sister in 3rd.

Other News

In other news, Aston Martin revealed their new car for the season as it hit the track earlier today during a shakedown at Silverstone. The team also announced that American F2 driver Jak Crawford would be joining the teams development programme which will see him tasked with simulator work, as well as the chance to drive Aston Martins 2022 car at a test later this year.

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