F1 Academy Weekend Report - China: Pin leads, rookies on the rise and more

14 hours ago8 min read

Written by Meghana Sree, Edited by Dhara Dave

The opening F1 Academy round was an eventful first outing for the series’ fresh pool of talent as well as a new challenge for the second-year drivers; setting the pace for the rest of the season.

F1 Academy returns for its third season with plenty of talking points heading into the seven-race calendar. As the young drivers took to the 16 turns of the Shanghai International Circuit from March 21st to 23rd, it was an all-out battle for dominance to secure the lead of the Drivers’ Championship early.

Qualifying - Weug sprints to Race Two pole

Right off the back of a frenzied first practice session, overshadowed by Rafaela Ferreira’s damaging contact with Lia Block (forcing the Williams driver out of Qualifying), F1 Academy headed into the 30-minute Qualifying expecting Practice topper Pin to clinch pole.

Yet MP Motorsport’s new recruit, the Ferrari-backed Maya Weug, set the timesheets alight with her rapid laps early into Qualifying and secured the first pole of the season.

The first competitive lap times were set by Chambers and Ella Lloyd, who were soon bested by Palmowski momentarily, then Weug. Setting a strong benchmark of 2:03.37, Weug was untouchable throughout the session.

Weug took pole for Race 2 | Credit: F1 Academy

The session’s rising star was Weug’s 16-year-old teammate Alba Larsen who broke into the top four. The driver mentored by Kevin Magnussen went on to qualify third, an outstanding effort for the 2025 rookie.

Meanwhile, Pin was having a hard time matching the pace of the MP Motorsport drivers. Attempting to outdo Weug’s personal best of 2:03.379, the French driver lost time in the final two sectors. Pin settled for second, 0.497s behind Weug.

Further down, Alpine’s Nina Gademan finished eighth, critical as she would be on pole for the first race under the reverse grid format.

Race One - Palmowski makes a stellar first impression

The first reverse grid race of the season offered stunning racing action and crafty overtakes from returnees and rookies alike.

Gademan from pole had the first half of the race perfectly in her control after a great launch at the start. Starting fourth, Palmowski had an ideal opening lap as she swiftly moved up to second.

Behind the Briton, Chambers attempted a feisty move from around the outside of Turn 1 to pass both Emma Felbermayr and Palmowski, after getting ahead of Joanne Ciconte. Unfortunately, Chambers had to back out of the move after running out of the track but still held on to fourth.

Gademan led off from three safety car restarts flawlessly. The first came early in the race when Hitech TGR’s Wild Card Driver Wei found herself beached at Turn 7 after spinning off the track.

Further down, Weug was charging up the field from eighth. By the second lap, Weug was in fifth, dispatching fellow MP Motorsport teammate Alba Larsen. Felbermayr was soon passed by Chambers first, followed by Weug; promoting Chambers to the last podium spot. This was just in time before the second safety car due to contact between the two ART Grand Prix drivers Block and Aurelia Nobels.

The second restart brought more chaos. Chloe Chong, while attempting to jump Nicole Havrda, tapped Havrda’s rear — her tyres not yet warmed up and lacking grip. The incident resulted in a third safety car as Havrda was forced to retire, while Chong received a 10-second penalty.

More drama followed as Ciconte was slammed with a 10-second stop/go penalty for a starting procedure infringement. The unlucky MP Motorsport driver had to serve a second penalty for failing to complete the first one correctly. Another driver who served this penalty was Haas’ Courtney Crone in the closing stages of the race for a similar offense.

The third restart saw Gademan rapidly pulling away from the rest of the pack, but in a gutting turn of events for the Dutch driver, a car problem on the penultimate lap destroyed all hopes of victory.

Palmowski then took her chance, moving into the lead with Chambers hot on her heels. It was then a battle of attrition till the chequered flag for the Campos Racing drivers, with Palmowski emerging victorious to clinch her maiden win in the series.

A hard-fought duel between Palmowski and Chambers, eventually won by the Briton | Credit: F1 Academy

Weug completed on the podium and was followed closely by Pin who squeezed past Larsen and Felbermayr after a three-car tussle.

Both Larsen and Felbermayr were caught out on the final laps, Larsen was hit with a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision with Felbermayr. The Sauber driver was then clipped by Tina Hausmann in a dramatic end to Race One.

Race Two - Statement made by Pin; Weug and Chambers leave China with double podiums

Polesitter Weug tried everything she could to retain the lead, but Pin skillfully jumped ahead and cruised to the podium’s top step.

After a delay and rolling start due to an oil spill in a previous session, the race was shortened to 11 laps. Pin quickly seized the lead after a tight combat with Weug who had to settle for second.

Behind the frontrunners, it was another disappointing session for Hausmann and Gademan, after the former overshot the brakes and ran into Gademan, fetching a 10-second penalty.

Later on, Ciconte too had trouble from behind as Chong made contact with her rear and collected Nobels and Havrda in the crash. Chong received a penalty for the same, pushing her out of the points after the race.

A safety car restart saw Pin pulling away from Weug who was desperately trying to stay within a second of Pin. Just behind the former teammates, Weug’s new teammate Larsen was all elbows out to fend off Chambers. A tense duel between the rookie and returnee culminated with a brave overtake from Chambers down into Turn 1, promoting her to third while Larsen came home in fourth as the highest rookie finisher.

Another two-car tussle that was critical in determining the points-scorers was between Race One winner Palmowski and Felbermayr. Palmowski tried every trick in the rule book but ran out of laps to chase Felbermayr down. After close contact and a tense battle, Felbermayr managed to hold on to fifth.

The top ten was rounded out by Lloyd, Ferreira, Block and Gademan in tenth.

Drivers’ Thoughts

Race One winner Palmowski was jubilant after her outstanding debut season performance, exclaiming: “It feels like a whirlwind, I just feel like everything just happened so quickly. It was a difficult race. Obviously, a lot of Safety Cars, which is tricky to get into your rhythm because this is such a momentum-based circuit that you like to get in a flow and be consistent with your lap time."

“So, it was difficult to keep getting that flow disrupted. Very sorry for Nina [Gademan] as well because she did a great job. She obviously had some issue, I don't know exactly what went wrong. We were fortunate with that, but super happy to get a 1-2 for the team as well. Chloe [Chambers] behind me, there was a lot of pressure for those last few laps. I just really wanted the 1-2 for the team, so a perfect way to start the season.”

Another driver with the perfect start to the season was the Mercedes driver Pin: “I’m really happy about this achievement. We put everything together, but we also aimed for this victory at the end of the weekend because we know it was the race where we score most of the points and we did it."

“It was important to do pole position but I think it’s more important to win this race today. I hope in Jeddah we will get pole and the win, but really happy about this achievement. I think we did a good strategy with the team and the team did a great job as well, so happy to finish on a high in China.”

Pin, the 2025 favourite, hopes to secure the championship this year | Credit: F1 Academy

One of the stand-out rookies this round was Larsen who was pleased with how her weekend panned out, but still kept her head down and acknowledged that there’s room for improvement: “I wasn’t expecting to keep on to the P3 as well as I did. It was quite hard with Chloe [Chambers] behind me. We fought good and it was a close battle. Unfortunately, I only finished P4, but I think it’s such a good result, over our expectations.”

Championship Standings After China

Drivers’ Championship

Doriane Pin — 31
Maya Weug — 26
Chloe Chambers — 24
Alisha Palmowski — 18
Alba Larsen — 14

Teams' Championship

Campos Racing — 50
MP Motorsport — 40
PREMA Racing — 32
Rodin Motorsport — 19
ART Grand Prix — 2
Hitech TGR — 1

Pin will undoubtedly be intent on extending her lead while the others close behind her will do everything they can to up their game and snatch P1 from the French Driver.

Meanwhile, in the teams’ standings, Campos Racing have the advantage but their rivals, especially defending champions PREMA Racing, will be keen on claiming the final overall victory.