Chiara Baettig is a Swiss single-seater racer. As petrol-powered circuit racing is illegal in her home country, she has competed abroad exclusively.
After a long and quite successful spell in junior karting in Europe, she began racing cars at the age of 15, at the end of 2025. Her three Swiss karting championships attracted the attention of Red Bull, and she was invited to their driver search event in Portugal. This led to a race seat.
She travelled to Saudi Arabia for the Saudi F4 championship, driving for a Red Bull-affiliated team with Scott Lindblom and Christopher al-Feghali. She was eighth in her first race at Bahrain, but then did not finish the second race. The story was the same for the next round, with one ninth place after another DNF. Her best finish was seventh, at Jeddah. Without the three non-finishes she incurred, she could have been the best of the six regular female drivers in the series. She was twelfth overall.
Prior to a full season in the British F4 Championship, Campos Racing ran her in the Formula Winter Series, held in Spain in the first months of 2026. Campos has been the home of the Red Bull and Racing Bulls entries in F1 Academy since 2025. She was their sole full-championship entry out of the five F1 Academy-associated drivers they ran. It was not a consistent five rounds for her; she earned one second place at Estoril, behind Rocco Coronel, but her next-best finish was tenth at Aragon. She did improve in the second half of the series, becoming a consistent top-twenty finisher who was closer to the top ten. She was 17th overall.
After a slow start at Donington, she began to hit her stride in British F4 at Brands Hatch, where she was sixth in Race 3. A steady Snetterton meeting was then followed by two further top-tens at Silverstone, a ninth and her debut podium of the year, a third place. On the way, she set the fastest lap of the weekend. This was one of two podiums; she was third again at Silverstone later in the year, having finished fifth earlier in the weekend.
Silverstone was also the scene of her eye-catching debut in F1 Academy. She secured the highest grid position of any of the previous wildcard entries, a pole position, and was also the youngest driver to do this. Race 1 was a reverse grid and Chiara couldn't move up from eighth, but she and Alisha Palmowski were the runaway leaders in the second race. Alisha had got a much better start, but Chiara chased her all the way and was less than a second down by the end.
(Image copyright F1 Academy)
