Everything to know ahead of the 2024 season

The Alpine F1 team announced its support of Abbi Pulling for the 2024 F1 Academy season as part of a new initiative for the all-female series.

All 10 F1 teams will support an F1 Academy driver in 2024, with the championship’s remaining five drivers being backed by other partners.

This initiative has been launched for the second year of F1 Academy, which made its debut in 2023 following the demise of W Series.

So, with the season starting in March 2024 in Saudi Arabia, here is everything you need to know about F1 Academy and its upcoming 2024 campaign:

What is F1 Academy?

F1 Academy is a female-only single-seater championship which aims to increase the development of women drivers in motorsport between the ages of 16 and 25. It therefore tries to create an easier transition from karting onto the single-seater ladder, with the hope that female drivers can then use F1 Academy as a springboard to higher levels of competition like Formula 3 and beyond.

The series was announced in November 2022 at a time when the future of W Series – a separate all-female, single-seater category – looked uncertain as the championship struggled financially and, shortly after, it entered administration before closing.

This left F1 Academy as the sole all-female series in motor racing, and it received significant backing from F1 where ahead of its debut campaign, Susie Wolff was appointed managing director.

Many drivers from the defunct W Series switched to F1 Academy – but not W Series champion Jamie Chadwick who moved to Indy NXT – and the grid of 15 was split into five teams – Campos Racing, MP Motorsport, ART Grand Prix, Rodin Carlin and Prema Racing – all with experience of racing in F2 or F3.

Photo by: Prema Powerteam

Marta Garcia, Léna Bühler, Lola Lovinfosse

Once the grid was completed, F1 Academy debuted at the Red Bull Ring where it quickly emerged who the outstanding driver was. Marta Garcia won two of the three races on the opening weekend which gave the Spaniard a championship lead that she never lost.

The 23-year-old followed up her dominant weekend in Austria with another victory in Valencia a week later but went winless at the following round in Barcelona. However, it was her consistency that weekend that set her apart as Garcia stood on the podium in each race before another top three finish in Zandvoort, yet the next win still eluded her.

Championship rivals Lena Buhler and Hamda Al Qubaisi kept in touching distance as a result, but Garcia was soon back to winning ways taking victory in the opening race of the Monza weekend.

The Prema driver then increased her championship lead after the penultimate weekend, as Garcia won two races at Circuit Paul Ricard which gave her a comfortable advantage going into the season finale. Garcia then wrapped up the championship win with a victory from pole for the opening race in Austin.

Having won the title, Garcia was unable to return to F1 Academy for 2024 but she has gone onto bigger things now having secured a seat with Prema in the Formula Regional European Championship, which has previously been won by the likes of Frederik Vesti and Dino Beganovic who moved onto F3 as a result.

Despite Garcia’s absence, F1 Academy is going up a level in 2024. For the first time, F1 teams will be supporting a driver and have a car dressed in its livery. This is part of a bigger collaboration between the two series, because the all-female championship will run exclusively on F1 grand prix weekends in 2024 as part of the support races.

This is different to 2023, where F1 Academy races were run as support events to the likes of FRECA, DTM and the World Endurance Championship. So, F1 Academy will be vastly different in 2024 as the series attempts to increase its standing within motorsport and get more young women progressing through the single-seater ladder.

F1 Academy race weekend format

Photo by: F1 Academy Limited

Marta Garcia, Prema Racing

An F1 Academy weekend has three races but before them are two practice sessions of 40 minutes and two 15-minute qualifying sessions. The first qualifying is for race one of the weekend, with the second for race three as both last 30 minutes plus minutes plus a lap.

This is because race two is where the partially-reversed grid format is used, as the top eight qualifiers from qualifying one are flipped for the starting order. Considering this, and because it is a shorter session, less points are awarded for race two with the winner scoring 10, second getting eight and third on six, with the tally then going down by one until the final point position of eighth.

For race one and three, meanwhile, they use the same points system as F1 where the winner scores 25 points with 10th being the final point position. F1 Academy also offers a point for the fastest lap in a race – provided the driver finishes inside the point positions – while two points are awarded for a pole position. This all means that a maximum of 67 points is available on an F1 Academy weekend.

Where is F1 Academy racing in 2024?

F1 Academy will continue to race across seven weekends in 2024, but five of the tracks will be new with only Barcelona and Zandvoort staying on the calendar.

The upcoming season will span three continents as Asia joins Europe and North America where the calendar features both street and traditional circuits. The 2024 campaign begins in Jeddah before visiting other new tracks like Miami, Marina Bay and Losail ahead of the season finale at Yas Marina.

This means the Red Bull Ring, Valencia, Monza, Paul Ricard and COTA have all been dropped from the F1 Academy calendar.

Photo by: Williams

Lia Block, ART Grand Prix with Williams Racing