Written by Vyas Ponnuri
A breakthrough second season and a hive of activity in the off-season later, F1 Academy embarks on its third campaign in 2025. With the atmosphere buzzing, Vyas gives you five reasons to watch the all-female F1 Academy series live in 2025.
The follow-up to a successful second season
There was no doubt F1 Academy's sophomore season stood out in comparison to the debut campaign in 2023. The key changes taken ahead of the season to bring it under the F1 support bill ahead of the 2024 season reaped dividends, with fans able to tune in and watch the young female stars race live.
In addition, all ten F1 teams were required to back atleast one driver on the F1 Academy grid, a move to increase the influence of the pinnacle of motorsport into the lowest rungs along the road to F1. In addition, the young racers on the grid were provided opportunities to benefit from being part of a junior academy, alongside access to state-of-the-art simulators and equipment at an F1 team's headquarters.
Furthermore, the championship gained valuable benefits of racing alongside F1 weekends, with an international live feed available on F1 TV, and broadcasting in as many as 160 countries, widening the sport's reach to a much greater audience than anticipated.
F1 Academy's initiative to open up opportunities to wild card racers on race weekends also provided several fresh faces to get a look-in, including the likes of Alisha Palmowski, Nina Gademan and Ella Lloyd, all of whom have graduated to a full-time race seat in 2025, by virtue of their standout drives in one-off appearances last season.
These crucial moves ensured the series grew to newer heights in only its second season, and much will be expected from F1 Academy going into its newest season, and how the series backs up its successful 2024 with another cracking F1 season.
A younger grid, a fresh rookie class in 2025
F1 Academy's 2025 grid will wear a fresh look, with plenty of new faces and young stars donning the overalls and joining the grid. Many names from the 2024 grid have departed the championship, following the new rule limiting F1 Academy racers to a maximum of two seasons in the series.
The average age of the F1 Academy grid dropped to 20.4 in 2024. This figure has dropped even further to 18.8 for the 17 full-timers in 2025, with several youngsters joining the series in 2025.
Among the new faces is Danish racer Alba Hurup Larsen, backed by Tommy Hilfiger for the season. The 16-year-old is the youngest to feature on the 2025 F1 Academy grid, and has been mentored by none other than Haas F1 racer Kevin Magnussen.
17-year-old Rafaela Ferreira too joins the series, backed by Racing Bulls, having become the first woman to take a race win in the 2024 Brazilian F4 Championship. Qatar wildcard Alisha Palmowski is the other new face on the grid to be backed by the Red Bull stable. The 18-year-old topped in-season testing, before finishing fifth in Qatar as a wildcard, backing up a stellar vice-champion campaign in GB4 in 2024.
A pair of young Australians also feature in the rookie pool, with TAG-Heuer backed Aiva Anagnostiadis racing for the new Hitech TGR outfit and Joanne Ciconte at MP Motorsport in 2025.
With Carrie Schreiner becoming KICK Sauber's ambassador in 2025, the baton shifts to 18-year-old Emma Felbermayr at Rodin Motorsport, the Austrian being the third generation of racers in her family.
19-year-old Nicole Havrda will partner Anagnostiadis at Hitech TGR, the Canadian set to don American Express colours in 2025, as she looks to add to her stateside success in her debut F1 Academy campaign in 2025.
2024 wildcards Nina Gademan and Courtney Crone also step up to F1 Academy as full-timers this year, with the former backed by Alpine and the latter backed by Haas as they look to amass further success in the championship. Gademan became the first wildcard to score points in 2024, finishing fourth and tenth at Zandvoort.
McLaren-backed Ella Lloyd also steps up to the championship full-time in 2025, having scored points as a wildcard in Singapore, the racer from Wales looking to build on a wildcard appearance and her trio of British F4 podium finishes in 2024.
Finally, Chloe Chong returns to the championship, backed by beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury heading into the season. Chong had previously raced in the championship in 2023, accumulating six points finishes in the season.
The wild cards continue into 2025, with this weekend's wild card racer Shi Wei becoming the first woman to race under the Chinese flag in the series.
With several new faces, plenty of untapped potential will be unleashed as F1 Academy takes to the track in 2025.
Who looks the strongest of the returnees?
In contrast to a field largely dominated by rookies, six racers return to the championship this year for their second and final campaign. These racers could emerge front runners in the field, having gained a year of experience racing in the series in 2024.
Perhaps the favourite to watch out for is Mercedes junior Doriane Pin, who started off strong winning in Jeddah, before playing second fiddle to eventual champion Abbi Pulling all season. Pin also took victories in Zandvoort and Lusail, and her rapid pace and a year of experience racing in the FRECA series marks the French racer as an immediate favourite for overall honours in 2025.
Pin will face stern competition from Ferrari junior Maya Weug and Red Bull Ford backed Chloe Chambers, both race winners in 2024. Weug displayed flashes of pace towards the end of 2024, making a late bid for second in the standings, putting her learnings to good use with victory in Abu Dhabi rounding off an impressive maiden season.
Chambers' season took an opposite course, a strong start peaking with a maiden win in Barcelona, before four non-scores in the succeeding weekends saw her drop down to sixth in the standings. Chambers will be looking to put behind the difficult end to 2024, as she looks to take outright victory in her second F1 Academy campaign for Campos in 2025.
Having gained a year of racing experience in the series after transitioning from rallying, Williams junior Lia Block will be looking for a higher finishing position in 2025. A pair of fourth place finishes in Singapore highlighted Block's learnings in the series, as she will be looking for more big points heading into the new season.
Aston Martin-backed Tina Hausmann and PUMA racer Aurelia Nobels round out the sophomore class of 2025. Both racers found themselves towards the tail end of the grid in their debut seasons, with Hausmann finishing 10th and Nobels 12th. The duo will be looking to put their year's worth of experience to full effect this season.
New Locales and reverse-grid races in 2025
It's not just new drivers and a new team being the talk of the town as F1 Academy heads into its latest campaign. Several new locations headline the all-female racing series' calendar in its third season.
The season opener in Shanghai is the first new location to feature on the calendar, with the 5.4 km (3.3 mi) long circuit set to play host to an F1 Academy race this weekend, giving the 18 racers and six teams a taste of the season to follow.
The grid heads to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in April, after a successful maiden outing in 2024, before following up its maiden visit to Miami in 2024 with another race weekend this May.
The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is set to play host to F1 Academy for the first time in 2025, with the tight confines of the 4.3 km (2.6 mi) circuit set to provide plenty of action in June, apart from providing Hitech TGR's Nicole Havrda an opportunity to race in front of her home fans.
Zandvoort and Singapore too feature later in the 2025 season, after successful outings across both venues last season, while the championship will round out the year in the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, as F1 Academy cars will find themselves shimmering in the lights of the Strip on race day.
A wide range of tracks will certainly test the drivers' skill and racecraft, making for an exciting seven weekends and 14 races to follow in 2025. This will only be enhanced by reverse grid races returning in 2025, with the top eight in qualifying reversed for race one, and the points structure being 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 down to eighth for the race.
A new documentary on the line
Apart from the racing action, F1 Academy will jump onto the docu-series bandwagon, with a multi-part series set to be launched on streaming platform Netflix in 2025.
Produced by F1 Academy and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine, this docu-series will provide insight into the lives of F1 Academy racers and give an insight into the drama of the races, apart from going into the personal lives of the racers and their families.
This docu-series aims to tap into a wider, non-motorsport audience, mirroring the successes of Formula One: Drive to Survive and NASCAR's Full Speed documentary, in an attempt to widen the audience of the series.
"To have the F1 Academy docuseries launch globally with Netflix is not just a huge step forward in visibility for our mission, but also a resounding statement about the momentum and demand for women’s sport," F1 Academy's Managing Director Susie Wolff said, when breaking the news to the public last year in May.
There's no doubt docu-series have proven to be a successful formula when it comes to engaging audiences in a unique way, and helping the viewers build a rapport with the racers themselves on screen.
If this proposed docu-series is to get anywhere close to matching the viewing figures of Formula One: Drive to Survive, it would prove to be a massive step forward for the all-female racing series and its future.
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