F1 Academy

F1 Academy is the latest in a long line of female-only development championships, launched in 2023. 

It was brought forward by the FIA after the demise of W Series and unlike W Series, has the support of the FIA and its Women in Motorsport Commission.

The championship uses F4 cars with an uprated aero package. There are five independent teams, each running three drivers each. All five are major players in global junior single-seater competition. Drivers must have an appropriate license and be aged between 16 and 25 at the start of the year. They are recruited by the teams privately. Each driver has to bring about £150k in funds to compete, but this is considerably less than it costs to take part in the equivalent mixed F4 championship in their region. Each race seat is subsidised by the teams and the FIA. The championship's CEO is Susie Wolff.

As well as seven meetings with three races (reduced to two in 2024)  at each, F1 Academy drivers have access to 15 official test days throughout the year, giving them a large amount of track time for their investment. 

The aim of the championship is progression, so the winner each year has to move on. No-one may spend more than two seasons in the series.

Prema, one of the Academy teams, offered a Formula Regional Europe (FRECA) race seat to 2023 winner Marta Garcia. Teams who sign any F1 Academy driver finishing first, second or third into FRECA are allowed to run a fourth car for that driver.

2023 Results

1. Marta Garcia (Prema)

2. Lena Buhler (ART Grand Prix)

3. Hamda al-Qubaisi (MP Motorsport)

4. Nerea Marti (Campos)

5. Abbi Pulling (Rodin Carlin)

6. Amna al-Qubaisi (MP Motorsport)

7. Bianca Bustamante (Prema)

8. Jessica Edgar (Rodin Carlin)

9. Emely de Heus (MP Motorsport)

10. Lola Lovinfosse (Campos)

11. Carrie Schreiner (ART Grand Prix)

12. Chloe Grant (ART Grand Prix)

13. Megan Gilkes (Rodin Carlin)

14. Chloe Chong (Prema)

15. Maite Caceres (Campos)

2024

The second F1 Academy season increased its links with Formula 1. Each F1 team chose an Academy driver to support, meaning that two-thirds of the grid ran with F1-related liveries. The race weekends were run alongside seven F1 rounds. Instead of three races, two would be held.

An extra car for a wildcard driver from the country the race is held in was provided for some rounds.

The non-F1 affiliated cars attracted some high-profile sponsors, including Tommy Hilfiger and Charlotte Tilbury cosmetics.

There were six new full-time drivers, after Marta Garcia and Lena Buhler moved into FRECA, with Buhler ageing out of the competition. Megan Gilkes retired from racing and Chloe Chong, Maite Caceres and Chloe Grant went to race elsewhere.

2024 Results

1. Abbi Pulling (Rodin/Alpine) 

2. Doriane Pin (Prema/Mercedes)

3. Maya Weug (Prema/Ferrari)

4. Nerea Marti (Campos)

5. Hamda al-Qubaisi (MP Motorsport/Red Bull)

6. Chloe Chambers (Campos/Haas)

7. Bianca Bustamante (ART Grand Prix)

8. Lia Block (ART Grand Prix/Williams)

9. Carrie Schreiner (Campos/Sauber)

10. Tina Hausmann (Prema/Aston Martin)

11. Emely de Heus (MP Motorsport)

12. Aurelia Nobels (ART Grand Prix)

13. Jessica Edgar (Rodin)

14. Lola Lovinfosse (Rodin)

15. Amna al-Qubaisi (MP Motorsport/Racing Bulls)

Olympic Speedqueens

 

Divina Galica (left) and Ann Moore

Many Speedqueens have achieved success in other sports. Here are five of the best-known Olympian female racing drivers. This is in no way an exhaustive list.

Divina Galica was a downhill skier who competed in four winter Olympics between 1964 and 1992, in the downhill and slalom skiing events and later, speed skiing, a demonstration discipline. She attempted to qualify for three grands prix between 1976 and 1978 and enjoyed success in Group 8 single-seaters, truck racing and sportscars. Her introduction to motorsport came through a Shellsport celebrity race for sportspeople.

Showjumper Ann Moore also got into motor racing through the Shellsport organisation and its celebrity events. As an equestrian, she won a silver medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics, riding her horse Psalm. Her racing career was short, beginning with one ladies' race in 1975 and six further outings in a Formula Ford 2000.

Belgian swimmer Chantal Grimard made a surprise switch to touring cars in the 1980s. She first raced in the Belgian championship in 1985, driving a VW Golf, before appearing in the 1986 Spa 24 Hours in a Toyota Corolla. This was part of an all-female team. She also did some rounds of the French F3 championship in 1987 before retiring. As a swimmer, she had entered four events at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Swiss sportscar racer Lilian Bryner was another equestrian, competing at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. As a racing driver, she was the first woman to win the Spa 24 Hours in 2004, driving a Ferrari 550. She had won the GT class the year before, finishing second. She has raced multiple times at Le Mans and has World Sportscar Championship wins in a Ferrari 333 prototype.

Carole Montillet of France won a gold medal in downhill skiing and also had a decent career in rally raids after her retirement. She won the all-female Rallye Aicha des Gazelles rally raid in 2011 and 2012, after class wins in the quad class in 2004 and 2005. In 2007, she took part in the Dakar, driving a Nissan, but did not finish.

Renault 5 Ladies' Monte Carlo Grand Prix support race, 1975

 

1. Marie-Claude Beaumont (France)

2. Christine Beckers (Belgium)

3. Ivana Giustri (Italy)

Gabriel Konig (Ireland)

Yvette Fontaine (Belgium)

Martine de la Grandrive (France)

Judy Witter (South Africa)

“Biche” (Michele Petit) (France)

Susy Raganelli (Italy)

Maggie Anderson (UK)

Eeva Heinonen (Finland)

Paula Murphy (USA)

Twelve of the world’s best female drivers assembled in Monaco in 1975 for a one-make Renault 5 race, supporting the Monaco Grand Prix.

Renault used the event to promote both the Renault 5 Turbo itself and its associated one-make series held across Europe. Ladies’ races had acted as supports for the Monaco event before but this was one of the biggest and most competitive.

All of the invited women were experienced in motorsport and several had at least some involvement with Renault or the series sponsor, Elf. Eventual winner Marie-Claude Beaumont spent most of the season racing for the Ecurie Elf sportscar team and Britain’s Maggie Anderson was one of the first racewinners in the UK Renault 5 series.

Yvette Fontaine and Christine Beckers were highly accomplished touring car racers. Gabriel Konig had many years of experience in sports and saloon racing. Judy Witter had won a Formula Vee championship at home in South Africa.

Some of the others had plenty of motorsport experience but had not done much circuit racing: Ivana Giustri and Eeva Heinonen were ladies’ rally champions in their home countries and both “Biche” and Martine de la Grandrive were in-demand rally co-drivers.

Paula Murphy had been involved mainly in drag racing in the States and had held the women’s Land Speed Record. Susy Raganelli had won the World Kart Championship in 1966 but had raced little since then.

The full results of the race itself have proved hard to track down. It ran for 15 laps and Marie-Claude Beaumont won from pole position, followed by Christine Beckers and Ivana Giustri. Maggie Anderson had a good start from fourth but was passed by Yvette Fontaine and Biche, before outbraking herself at the chicane and having to take the escape road. She was then passed by Gabriel Konig and Eeva Heinonen and finished near the back. Gabriel, Eeva and Yvette continued to jostle for position, with Gabriel and Yvette prevailing. Eeva was tenth, despite setting the fastest lap.

(Image from acmanortheurope.com. For an account of the race in French, see renault-5.net)

Oksana Kosachenko

Oksana Kosachenko is best known as a Formula One team official and as the former manager of Vitaly Petrov, but she began her motorsport life as a driver.

She had a short competition career in the mid-2000s while she was working as a motorsport broadcaster. Her route into sports journalism was via gymnastics, which she had to give up as a young adult for medical reasons. As she was born in 1966, this would have been in the 1980s. Some sources claim that she was a coach and choreographer to rhythmic gymnasts, but the stories are all rather vague. Her involvement in motorsport started in broadcasting but very soon encompassed driver management and championship co-ordination.

She took part in the Russian VW Polo Cup in 2002 and 2003, with a best finish of tenth at St Petersburg in 2002. Her car was supplied by the “Sport Garage” team and the TV show for which she worked. Initially, she turned down the offer of a race seat but she was persuaded to take part and provide in-car commentary. Her season in 2003 was affected by an accident at St Petersburg; she was not able to start the next race and was off the pace for the much of the rest of the season. 

In 2004, she drove a Sport Garage Polo in some rounds of the Russian Touring Car Light Championship, but she was never among the front-runners. Her best result by a long way was a thirteenth place at the Nevaring near St Petersburg. 

In 2005, she made two appearances in the Russian Touring Car Championship, at Moscow. She finished 17th in both of her races, driving a Honda Civic. This was combined with a part-season in Touring Light, driving the same VW Polo as previously. 

Her competition career ends here but she continued as a commentator, working with European Formula 3 and the DTM for Russian television. At about the same time, her “Manuscript” promotional agency managed the Russian Touring Car Championship.

In tandem with her commentary and racing activities, she worked as a driver’s agent. She was the manager of Russian Formula One driver Vitaly Petrov from 2001, when Petrov was only 16. Under Oksana’s tutelage, he progressed from winning the Lada Cup in Russia, through the junior formulae, regional Formula 3000, GP2 and then Formula One in 2010 with Renault.

Their partnership concluded in 2013 when Oksana took on the role of commercial manager for the Caterham team. She lasted only one year with the team, which went into administration in 2014. 

Almost immediately she repositioned herself as an outspoken media pundit. Even while she was still at Caterham, she gave a superficially telling interview to a Russian paper about team spying and most drivers’ dislike of Monaco. 

More recently, she has made a series of inflammatory statements, including describing the struggling Williams team as “more like a Formula 2 team” and claiming that Aston Martin was unlikely to become a winning team.

She has distanced herself completely from her time as a driver and said on more than one occasion that women were not strong enough to be successful racing drivers.

(Image from fehrplay.com)

Nicole Drought

Nicole Drought is an Irish driver who mostly races saloon cars. She was the first female driver to win a round of the C1 Challenge in 2019.

Nicole first came to prominence racing touring cars in the Irish championship (ITCC). Her car was a Honda Integra, which runs in the Touring class. She started saving up for the car herself when she was 16.

2015 was her first year of serious competition, although she is from a motorsport family (mostly involved with rallying.) Her season got off to a shaky start with a crash in her first race, but she was soon on the pace. Her best finishes were a pair of second places, and she was second in the Touring class at the end of the season. As well as the Honda, she was invited to race a Porsche 944 at the Classic Car Live meeting, and finished fourth. 

She carried on in the ITCC with the Honda in 2016, in the Production class. After leading the Production standings for part of the season, she was fourth on the final leaderboard. She picked up her first win this year in the second round, at Mondello Park, crossing the line eight seconds in front of her nearest rival. She had been pushed off-track in the first race but still finished second in class. Her momentum was interrupted in later rounds due to car trouble.

Her first trip to the UK mainland was a run in a Global GT Light at Anglesey this year. As one of her first activities with the Sean Edwards Foundation, for which she is an ambassador, she also tested a Porsche GT3 at Paul Ricard.

A deal to run in the 2017 CSCC New Millennium Series in a Ginetta seems to have fallen through. She spent some of the season as a brand ambassador for Nissan, having reached the last eighteen of the NissanGenNext competition. She missed out on a prize drive.  

In 2018, she competed in Endurance Trials with a Nissan Micra. She was the Class 1A Endurance Trial champion in 2018 and defended her title in 2019 with several wins. On track, she raced in the 2018 Stryker sportscar series in Ireland, having first raced the Lotus Seven lookalike in 2017.

She also came to England for her first Citroen C1 endurance race for Preptech UK in 2018, with whom she would win the following year.

In the middle of 2019, she became the first female driver to win a round of the Citroen C1 Challenge, sharing with Colin Edwards at Anglesey. The pair were in the lead for a good proportion of the four-hour race, having started from eighth, and Nicole was 21 seconds ahead of her nearest rivals at the finish. Nicole and Colin raced together again at Snetterton but were only twelfth this time. 

She also raced in the Stryker Challenge and continued in Endurance Trials. Shortly after her C1 victory, she drove a Formula 1 car for the first time in a demonstration at Mondello Park. The car was an ex-Derek Daly March 811, as raced in 1981. It has a Guinness livery and was shipped over to Ireland especially by its owner John Campion. She also drove a Jordan owned by Campion in a private test in February, alongside James Roe Jr.

Nicole is a founding member of Formula Female, which was started by hockey player Nicci Daly. In March 2019, she challenged 20 of Ireland’s top sportswomen to beat her lap time around Mondello Park in her Stryker.

She moved to mainland UK to compete in 2020, driving a Porsche 718 Cayman in Britcar with CJJ Motorsport and the Valluga team. Her team-mates were Sean Doyle and Lorcan Hanafin. She was sixth in the championship and second in Class 4. Her best overall finish was fifth at Croft, in the first race of the season.

In 2021, she made one guest appearance in Britcar with the Motus One team, driving a Hyundai TCR car. She won her class at Silverstone with Danny Krywij.

Although she did not contest any full championships in 2022 either, she tried out some new disciplines, including historics. She demonstrated a Lola T70 at the Mondello Park Historic Festival, as well as racing a 1855 MGA. In England, she raced a Lotus Elise in the 750MC Club Enduro series and a Mini Cooper in the BRSCC Mini series, although not all of these outings was successful. She also raced in the C1 Cup and was third in her class in the Race of Remembrance, driving the C1.

Rallycross was her biggest new adventure. She raced a Renault Clio in both the Irish and British series.

She went back to the circuits in 2023, competing in the MSVR EnduroKa series. She was instantly on the pace and won her second race at Oulton Park. This had followed one-off drives in the Clubsport Trophy (in a Mini) and in a Group C Spice-Hart sportscar at the Mondello Historic Festival. It wasn't even her first win of the year: she won the Clubsport Trophy race at Donington after making a late deal. She also raced the C1 again.

Competing again in the UK and Spain, Nicole won the MSVR Trackday Championship in 2024. Her co-driver was Justin Roberts and their car was a Honda Civic. The pair were never out of the podium places. This followed a second Irish Open Clubman rallycross title for Nicole.

(Image from tipperarylive.ie)