Her first steps in cars were in the 2019 Spanish Formula 4 championship, with the Praga Espana Formula de Campeones team. In her second-ever race at Navarra, she was classified second overall due to ten drivers being penalised for not reacting quickly enough to a red flag. The rest of the year was inconsistent and led to championship 16th, with top tens at most of the tracks the series visited, but often followed by more disappointing results. She previously competed for the same team in karting from 2015 to 2018.
After the first season of the all-female W Series concluded in 2019, she was selected for a race seat in the next edition. However, the season was cancelled due to coronavirus and Nerea returned to karting for a time once motorsport began again.
She did get to race in W Series in 2021, and was named as one of the series' Academy drivers, who were exempt from elimination for a season. She impressed with a third place at the Hungaroring and was a regular top-ten finisher, coming fourth in the championship. She also tested an FIA F3 car with a group of female drivers, although no further drives came out of it.
In 2022, she was invited back to race with W Series, joining the Quantfury team alongside Belen Garcia, who had been a rival in the Spanish F4 championship. She was seventh in the championship, despite podium finishes in Miami and Paul Ricard.
After the collapse of W Series in early 2023, she signed for Campos Racing in the all-female F1 Academy, following two races in the Formula Winter Series at Valencia. Despite a first-round disqualification, she was fourth in F1A, winning once at Paul Ricard. She combined F1A with a run in the Spanish GT Championship, winning the GT4 class in a BMW Spain-supported M4 shared with Jose Manuel de los Milagros, who had also won a Catalan Endurance title with her in 2022. She had fit her CER races around her W Series commitments, and picked up six wins from eight races, finishing second in class. In 2023, they were ninth overall, with one outright podium finish.
In 2024, she was fourth in F1 Academy again, with third places at Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. She also had a few guest races in Spanish and NACAM F4. Even though she won a NACAM race at Mexico City (alongside two second places), her career began to move again towards sportscars, probably because she would not be allowed another year in F1A. More BMW Spain support helped her to fourth place in the GT4 class of the Supercars Endurance Championship. She also tested an Andretti Formula E car in the series' Women's Test at Estoril.
Sportscars were her focus for 2025, and she did almost a full season of the Supercars Endurance Series in a BMW M4, sponsored by BMW Promotion. Nerea and her team-mate Juan Maria de los Milagros won one race at Valencia, but they were only 15th in the championship as their other results were not as stellar.
(Image copyright Jason Vian/Vogue)
No comments:
Post a Comment