Chiara Baettig

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)

Emma Felbermayr

Emma Felbermayr is an Austrian single-seater driver who rose to prominence competing in the all-female F1 Academy.

Her senior racing career only began in 2025, when she was announced as an F1 Academy driver for Rodin. Previously, she had done karting in Europe. The team entered her into the Spanish-based Eurocup 4 Winter series, which was her first-ever time in a single-seater. During the first round at Jerez she improved her finishes from 28th, through 20th to a best of thirteenth. In the next round at Portimao, she was 20th, 21st and 31st. As she missed the last round, this left her 27th in the championship, second of Rodin's three drivers, ahead of Kyuho Lee who did a full season.

She also drove in the main Spanish F4 championship, racking up almost a full season as part of the same team. It was rather an inconsistent year ending in 29th overall, with her best finish being another thirteenth at Catalunya. In contrast to her Jerez result, which was aided by a string of crashes and some judicial penalties, this one was more on her own efforts.

Her debut season in F1 Academy was a very mixed bag of results. Driving a Rodin-run car with the backing of the Sauber F1 team, she was dropped to eleventh in the first race at Shanghai after contact with Tina Hausmann's car on the last lap. She was fifth in Race 2. There was more contact and disappointing results at Jeddah and Miami, then she made a breakthrough at Montreal. On the track, she was third in Race 1, but was later disqualified due to her car being underweight. She made it up in Race 2 with her first win. 

For the rest of the season, there were no more podium finishes, although she came close in Singapore with fourth. She was tenth overall.

Her 2026 season began with a run in the UAE F4 championship, driving for PHM Motorsport this time. Her best finish was a twelfth place in the third round at Yas Marina and she was 26th overall. 

Sauber became Audi for at the beginning of 2026 and Emma was retained as their F1 Academy driver Rodin also kept her on in F1 Academy, although she continued to race for PHM elsewhere. Her programme included selected rounds of the Italian F4 championship. In May, she also joined the British F4 championship with Virtuosi Racing. She picked up one top-twenty finish at Silverstone and did slightly better in the Italian series, coming in 15th once at Misano and fourteenth at Monza.

The F1 Academy season began well at Shanghai. Emma was third in Race 1, in spite of contact from Alba Larsen. She then won the second race after a mistake by Larsen, who was leading, dropped her to the back. Alba Larsen remained somewhat of an albatross for Emma; she spun during the reverse grid race at Montreal after a small collision with her car.  She had stalled on the grid during Race 1, but earned a second place in Race 3.

She is the daughter of sportscar racer Horst Felbermayr Jr. He has expressed a desire to race at Le Mans with his daughter and son in the future. Emma has said she would like to compete at Le Mans some day. 

Her career has been aided by Allan McNish, who now runs the Audi academy.

(Image copyright Jun Da Tan)

Kornelia Olkucka

Kornelia Olkucka is a Polish single-seater racer who has competed in F4 across Europe.

She raced in CEZ F4 in 2024. This was her debut in cars and she raced for the Swiss Maffi team. The first two rounds at Balaton Park and the Red Bull Ring were tough for her, but she became a reliable finisher, with a best finish of sixth at Brno. Her team withdrew her from the last round at Salzburg and she was 17th in the championship, second of the three female regulars behind Michalina Sabaj.

Staying with the Maffi set-up, she entered the Formula Winter Series at the start of 2025. Her aims were mostly learning still, and she did finish all twelve races. This was in spite of some of them being rather incident-filled, including one at Valencia where her two of her rivals were penalised for pushing her off the track. Her best finish was at Catalunya, where she was 20th in the final race of the year. This was her second top-twenty after another at Valencia. She was 37th in the championship.

This was preparation for a season in Italian F4 in 2025. The Maffi team entered four drivers, two more experienced and two rookies, Kornelia and David Walther. The first round at Misano was a tough one; she was 27th in the first race, despite suffering tyre damage following contact, then 26th in her second heat, but she did not qualify for the final. The Vallelunga rounds were also in a heats-and-final format, and the weather was bad to boot. Kornelia finished one of her races in 22nd place, having spun out of Race 1 due to contact with another car. Again, she did not qualify for the final. At Monza and Mugello, she finished all three races both times, scoring a best result of 26th, at Monza. Unfortunately, she then had two DNFs at Imola. It was a chaotic meeting and Race 2 had to be cancelled completely after a startline pile-up. Kornelia received a three-place grid penalty for crashing into her team-mate in an attempt to avoid stationary cars. 

She did not better her 22nd place in the two remaining rounds, with one 24th place at Misano the best of her late season. Her final championship position was 50th.

Prior to her switch to cars, she was a karter from the age of 14, and represented Poland at the 2022 Motorsport Games in the Karting Endurance category. She has expressed interest in sports psychology and suggested it as a future career move.

(Image copyright Maffi Racing/Kornelia Olkucka)

Alisha Palmowski

Alisha Palmowski began her racing career in Ginetta Juniors in 2022, aged 15. She was the winner of the Ginetta Junior Scholarship and her prize was a full season’s racing in the championship. She describes this win as a turning point in her career; without it, she might never have switched to cars from karts.

Her scholarship followed six years of karting, during which she finished strongly in two junior categories. Although she quickly became competitive, she had no great interest in doing sports as a child, and only watched motorsport on TV.

Her best results were two eighth places at Knockhill in July and the challenging Brands Hatch GP circuit, in October. This was one of six top-ten finishes she earned that year and she was thirteenth in the championship. A run in the Ginetta Winter Series followed; the four-round series was held at Brands Hatch and she picked up one second and one third place.

In 2023, she was fifth in the championship, with ten podiums from 24 races. She was third in her second race of the season at Oulton Park, then second twice at Silverstone, setting herself up for a strong run in her final year as a junior racer.

Switching to single-seaters, she entered the GB4 championship in 2024 and was immediately on the pace again, winning the first round at Oulton Park, one of her best circuits. This was one of three wins that year, which gave her second in the championship, with eight additional podium finishes.

Impressing many onlookers by getting to grips with GB4 so quickly, she was selected as a wildcard entry for the Bahrain F1 Academy round and finished fifth in the one race which took place. This led to a full-time Academy seat in 2025, driving for the Campos team as Red Bull's supported driver. She has spoken openly about being quite star-struck in the F1 paddock, but it did not affect her performance.

At the end of 2024, she took part in the Formula E Women's Test at Jarama, driving for the Envision team with Alice Powell.

To prepare for her upcoming season, she entered the Formula Winter Series at the start of 2025, alongside her Campos team-mates, Chloe Chambers and Rafaela Ferreira. All three did two rounds each, with Alisha taking the first two at Algarve and Ricardo Tormo. She was the highest-placed of the three, coming in 23rd in the championship. Algarve was her best circuit; she was thirteenth twice and twelfth once.

She could not have hoped for a better start to her 2025 F1 Academy season. An incident-strewn first race at Shanghai meant that a calm and determined Alisha was able to take her first win. She followed it with a sixth place, and was then third and fourth at Jeddah, and second at Miami. Later highlights were second places at Zandvoort and Las Vegas, the latter making up for a race one disqualification due to her car failing scrutineering.

She has been retained by her team for the 2026 season.

(Image copyright Red Bull)