The fourth and penultimate round of the 2026 Kyojo Cup Season took place at Fuji Speedway in Japan at the start of this month and proved to be a decisive round in what is already a closely contested series. From potential Championship altering results to comeback drives and series firsts, the all female Japanese Series proved its value once again, not just for driver development but as essential viewing for motorsport fans across the globe.

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All to Play For in the Championship

While the top six drivers in the standings are all still mathematically in the hunt for the Driver’s Championship as the Kyojo Cup approaches its final round of the season, realistically five of those are still in with a shot - thanks in part to Miki Onaga’s standout performance in this second to last contest. Having finished outside of the points in both races from the third round of the Championship, Onaga faced a sizable challenge to rebound and put herself back in with a chance at winning the title. That’s exactly what she did this time out though as she qualified in Pole Position before going on to win the Sprint Race and then finished in third place in the Final Race. Not only was it her first Pole Position of the season but her first victory too and neither could have come at a better moment for her. The experience that she’s garnered so far this season repaid her handsomely and highlights one of the benefits of running an entire Championship at a single circuit. Fifth place overall, Onaga still perhaps has the most difficult job of clinching the title (besides Shimono in sixth) but as this weekend proved, it’s not over until it’s over.

That’s a sentiment that Aimi Saito will be repeating to herself heading into the final round of the season. After equalling her worst result of the season so far of fifth place (not that bad really) in the Sprint Race, she then got caught up in what was almost a collision on track. Taking avoiding action of the cars ahead of her, Saito went off track at the first turn but damaged her car in the process in the Final Race which ultimately resulted in her retiring from the race. Thus she was only able to collect four points from the entire weekend - a serious blow to her Championship ambitions. While just six points away from the top spot in the Championship, all bar one of her main rivals had stellar weekends. Onaga brought herself back into play, as mentioned, while Kokoro Sato was the second of three drivers to finish on the podium in both races with a second place finish and a victory in the Final Race to her name. Not only was it Sato’s first second place finish of the year but also her very first victory too. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she was the only driver aside from Onaga to be even happier with her performance across this penultimate round. Sato is now just five points behind Saito and could at the very least leap frog her in the standings next time out.

But even if all of these drivers have dream weekends next time out at Fuji, there are still two drivers they’ll need to somehow get past.

Tomishita Vs Ciconte

Saito wasn’t the only one to potentially feel the pressure of a Championship run in Fuji. Riona Tomishita, Championship leader, had not only her worst Qualifying of the season so far (seventh place) but then had an uncharacteristically underwhelming pair of results as she finished in sixth place in both races. This is surprising because aside from her thirteenth place finish back in the Sprint Race at the second round of the year, Tomishita hasn’t finished outside of the top five all year.

Behind her though is the personification of consistency - Joanne Ciconte. The Australian continues to absorb pressure like a sponge and does all that she needs to to stay very much in the hunt for winning the title in her rookie season. Having qualified in fourth, she finished in third in the Sprint Race before going one better and finishing in second place in the Final Race. Less than twenty points away from Tomishita following the last round, she’s now cut that deficit to just five points. While yet to win a race this season, Ciconte has had a lowest finishing position of sixth and has just been showing up and doing the work week in, week out. It’s a method that’s working. Tomishita has more wins. Saito and Sato have more podiums. But Ciconte could steal the limelight from all of them and win this Championship without ever having placed a foot on the top step of the podium at all. Regardless of what happens next time out, Ciconte has proved to be remarkable this year and teams in other series around the globe should sit up and take notice if they haven’t already.

Season High Points

Further down the order, there were some good news stories. Kilei Kanemoto had her best result of the season so far when she finished in fifth place in Sunday’s Final. She’d previously risen only as high as ninth. Shiraishi’s seventh place in the same race was not only her best result yet but also her first time in the points since the second round of the Championship too. Hirakawa finished just behind her in the final in eighth to collect her maiden points of the season, having only competed in the second round of the Championship prior to this.

Despite no points being on offer, several other drivers also had their best results of the season so far at Fuji this time out. Iwaoka finished just outside of the points in eleventh with Ito and Sitarvee equalling their best results of the season in twelfth and thirteenth. Yun Quing finished in fourteenth place in the final which was a step up too and hopefully an encouraging sign for the Chinese driver that she’s moving in the right direction.

Half a Dozen of One and the Other

Rami Sasaki had her best qualifying of the year in second place but unfortunately slid down the order in both races. Still, she finished in the points for both the Sprint and the Final, one of only five of the twenty drivers to do so, in eighth and tenth respectively. It was a close call in the Sprint though as she had an edge of the seat photo finish for the final points paying position as she and Shimono drag raced one another to the finish line.

Paide Raddatz had a difficult weekend but was able to finish it on a high. Contact in the Sprint led to retirement and a fightback through the pack, ultimately back up to ninth by the end of the Final Race. It won’t have been the weekend that Raddatz will have wanted heading into it but her resilience and determination were on full display here which was great to see.

Following decent results for both Matusi (fourth) and Miura (seventh) in the Sprint, both drivers then came together on just the second lap of the Final Race, with both forced to retire from the race as a result and bringing out the Safety Car. It was both drivers’ first DNF of the season in what has been a respectable campaign for the pair thus far. They’ll both be hoping to come back stronger for the final round of the season.

Final Thought

Just five points sit between first and second place in the Championship. There is only one more point separating third place from this fight too with six drivers in contention overall. Barring any major mishaps though, it looks like it’ll be a straight fight between Tomishita and Ciconte with Saito searching for a remarkable comeback after her DNF this time out.

A further six drivers have yet to score a single point so far this season and each will desperately want to change that in the final round of the year. As for everyone else, they’ll all be searching for a season best result in the season finale too, not just to go into the off-season on a high but to also sell themselves to other teams in other series looking at who they want on their roster for any of the remaining races on their dockets in 2026 and then looking ahead too to 2027.

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Kyojo Cup returns October 31st at Fuji Speedway.

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For the best part of the last two years, Tilly Wilkinson has been working as the Senior PR and Communications Manager for the Envision Formula E Team. She’s worked with drivers such as Sebastian Buemi, Sam Bird and Alice Powell and has had to navigate a plethora of different situations around the globe across a number of race weekends, leaving many wondering just how she manages to balance it all.

It’s Race Week! got the chance to speak with Tilly at the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London back in August and from that, we’re now able to put a spotlight on Tilly in the fourth part of our Formula E Spotlight Series.

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What does your role involve over the course of a race weekend?

Yeah, it’s a bit of a mixed bag of lots of different stuff. My role is actually pre-race weekend, normally - not that I totally get to relax on a race weekend, but working closely with, as part of our Race Against Climate Change programme, we tend to run a lot of events in and around race weekends. So, on Thursday, we hosted an AI data centre summit, bringing together leaders across tech, sustainability, energy, in the same room at London City Hall, the Mayor’s office, which just happens to be across the road from where we race. We had about 100 people there, listening to some fantastic speakers across AI data centres. That was in conjunction with, obviously, our owners, Envision Group, the largest green tech company in the world. So, yeah, that’s sort of part and parcel of it.

And then, on the Friday this week, I also held a big press conference to announce our new title partner, Paysafe Envision Racing. So my job involves managing that kind of thing, very much doing stuff in the lead-up to the race weekend, and then it’s up to these guys to do the rest.”

What would you say has been a standout moment for you this season?

“Ooh, the title partnership, that’s been the highlight.”

How long has that been in the works?

“A long time. To get it all done for London Race, you know, and to be able to announce that this weekend has been huge for us. Really, really exciting. I’d say that’s probably one of our biggest highlights. We’ve done other incredible races, climate change events around the world. We did an awesome activation in Atlanta with our driver, Sebastian Buemi, driving an all-electric NASCAR around a NASCAR track. So, just kind of another, trying to show the power of electric across the world and promote electric technologies everywhere.

And another huge big thing that we’ve done this year, I completely forgot about it, we’ve announced that we are going to be planting 500,000 trees in the Sundarbans region, which is a part of India. It’s the largest mangrove delta in the world, with Envision Energy India and with EarthDay.org. So, it’s a huge project that’s going to really transform the lives of a lot of local people. But also, obviously, mangrove trees sequester four times more carbon than your normal terrestrial forest.

And the whole purpose of it is fan engagement and driving awareness with our fan base. So, we encourage fans. The reason why we’re able to do that, plant that amount of trees, is because our fans make pledges on our website. So, our sustainable chain campaign is all about fans making a pledge and then sharing that with somebody and then getting them to make a pledge and starting a sustainable chain. So, that’s been a huge thing that we’ve announced this year as well. So, yeah, it’s been a very, very busy year, but a very, very positive year for Envision.”

What is it about your role that you enjoy so much?

“Ooh, I think it’s probably, like, my background, funnily enough, isn’t motorsport. It’s in sustainability, corporate, tech, comms. So, one thing that I love about my role, specifically, is what this small team can do and the impact that it has. So, you know, there’s not really many other platforms like sports that can connect with people and promote such an incredible message whilst also putting money where your mouth is.

You know, the amount of stuff that this tiny team can do, not just in terms of fan engagement and bringing awareness to fans, but, you know, bringing partners and government and business leaders together in the same room at some of our major events across the year to really tackle some of the biggest challenges. Like, you know, the AI Data Centre Summit on Thursday is a perfect example. We had the people at, like, the front of this next level of technology. Data centres, huge demand, obviously, with AI, continued demand and quite a controversial and hard topic. So having all the people in one room to debate that topic and kind of... And using sport as a really soft power way of getting everyone together to go, we all like this thing and we can use that as a gateway to have that conversation without any aggro.

Yeah, and then with the incredible backdrop of Formula E, the only B Corp certified sport is great. A series that’s been net zero from day one and, you know, also has put their money where their mouth is and is super, super efficient, exciting, all around sustainability, but in a way that is just better, not just good for the planet.”

Check back here on It’s Race Week! soon for more spotlights from the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London.

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Most professional drivers start young, racing go-karts as soon as they can grip a steering wheel. For Genevieve Ooi, motorsport was a dormant passion waiting to be unlocked. She spent most of her early life in a tutu; dance was all she knew. That changed at 12 when her dad gifted her a Logitech G29 for Christmas, and the rest is history.

Today, she is rewriting the traditional racing pipeline. Moving from competitive sim racing, where she secured Sarawak’s historic first e-sports gold at SUKMA 2026, to the physical tarmac, the 21-year-old Sarawakian proves that digital racecraft translates to real-world speed. As a standout in Toyota’s Young Talent Development Programme and a podium finisher in the Malaysia Touring Car Championship (MTCC), she bypassed the conventional karting route entirely.

But the leap from simulator to Sepang demands more than raw pace. It requires physical conditioning, extreme mental compartmentalisation, and recalibrating the very real risks of Turn 1. We spoke with Genevieve about navigating paddock scepticism, balancing esports with physical racing, and her ultimate goal: being known simply as the fastest driver on the grid.

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Transitioning From Dance To Sim Racing

Growing up, Genevieve’s world revolved around the performing arts, spending most of her life in a tutu rather than a race suit. “Dance was all I knew. I enjoyed performing arts. I did ballet, contemporary, jazz, cultural, anything under the sun,” she shares. “I starred in several musical productions back in school. Racing was nothing but a ‘what if’ at the back of my head.”

Even so, she recalls stories of herself as a kid playing racing games against her grandmother, allocating time slots to play between her Barbie dolls and the Hot Wheels set she borrowed from her cousin. At 12, that dormant passion finally took the wheel when she received a Logitech G29 as a Christmas gift from her dad.

Without the ability to race other players online due to a lack of PlayStation Plus, her casual virtual Sunday drives became a way for her to explore the most iconic tracks in the world. Soon, she found herself participating in her first sim racing event: TGR Malaysia’s GT Cup Campus Tour. Designed to bring the thrill of simulator racing directly to university students, it was here that she truly realised the depth of her passion for the sport.

Sim racing also provided a profound escape during a difficult period in her A-Levels. Struggling to find her place in college, she found sanctuary on the digital track.

“After rediscovering sim racing, it became my escape from reality. A place where nothing else mattered; just me and the car. I was fully in control of the narrative and pace I was to set. After a while, I realised that this suppressed dream of mine (becoming a racecar driver) could actually materialize.”

Thriving On Track

Genevieve’s digital racecraft culminated in a historic victory when she secured Sarawak’s first-ever e-sports gold medal at SUKMA 2026, a deeply personal triumph dedicated to her late grandfather. She further cemented her esports prowess by being crowned champion of the “Female Dreamers” category at the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge Malaysia (PESCM).

The leap from the simulator to physical circuits, however, was sparked by a single, life-changing question.

“It was when somebody had asked me, ‘Genna, how would you like to race at Sepang?’ It was then that Axle Sports gave me the opportunity to race in real life, and my whole world changed. They didn’t just give me the golden opportunity to realise a pipe dream; they pushed me to work harder to become the best.”

Although the Sarawakian does not have a background in traditional karting, she got her start at the Malaysian Speed Festival racing in Proton Sagas. The car was slower and the races were shorter, serving as a vital introduction for her body into the physical demands of motorsports. This breakthrough eventually led to a seat in Toyota’s Young Talent Development Programme.

Designed for promising young drivers with backgrounds solely in karting or sim racing, the programme puts these rookies through an intensive motorsports bootcamp mentored by Malaysia’s first and only F1 driver, Alex Yoong.

Graduates receive a fully funded race seat to compete in the Rookie Class of the Toyota Vios Challenge, which is where Genevieve made her mark. Reflecting on her experience, the racer believes the steepest learning curve she encountered was learning to cope under the immense pressure.

“I’d like to think of myself as an ambitious person. I get disappointed when I don’t achieve the goal I set out to achieve. When I see other drivers get it quicker than I do, I start to get frustrated, and that leads to a decline in my performance.”

Some of her most notable achievements on track include securing a double podium finish (P2 and P3) during Round 2 of the 2026 Malaysia Touring Car Championship (MTCC), standing as the sole female driver in the M-Touring 2-V Class. Beyond the MTCC, competing in the Rookie Class of the fiercely competitive Toyota Vios Challenge tested her limits, requiring her to survive gruelling heat and one-hour endurance stints.

Bridging the Gap Between the Virtual and Real World

Sim racing has not only helped make the sport more accessible, but it has also become a tool for drivers like Genevieve to develop their racecraft. Training in a virtual environment helps her stay sharp when analysing situations upfront and allows her to become braver when making overtakes or defending.

“I do feel people underestimate the importance of training on the sim and what it could potentially do to your performance. The sim is perfect to train for unsuspecting incidents and drivers; at least you can press restart. In real life, you only have thoughts and prayers.”

As an active sim racer with two championship wins to his name, Dhanesh Wigneswaran notes that sim racers rely on virtual data to build a highly analytical mindset. He shares: “If we have practised for a real-life race on the sim beforehand, then when we go to the real track, we can already analyse how we will tackle the race based on the data we have collected from the sim and try and correlate it to real life.”

Still, adapting to the reality of racing on track affected Genevieve during the early stages of her racing career. Driving conservatively caused her to lose out on many positions (or a guaranteed podium) due to the fear of footing the repair bills if a crash were to happen.

“However, I realised, how would you know where your limits are if you never push? What do I gain out of staying behind and going for a Sunday drive? When I got selected for the TGR Rookie programme, it really gave me the opportunity to fight as hard as I could without having to worry about paying for repairs. I really discovered my limits.”

One of the most unique challenges in Genevieve’s racing career came when she had to balance her time between three competitions: the title-deciding Round 4 season finale of the Malaysia Touring Car Championship, the Grand Finals of PESCM, and SUKMA. With limited time, she poured her heart and soul into preparing for SUKMA, leaving her with little to no practice or preparation for the other two competitions.

“SUKMA was extremely challenging, especially with the thought of Porsche and MTCC in mind. I told myself to take one day at a time. It was the only thing I could do,” she recalls. “After SUKMA was over, there was no break. The very next day, I had to completely shift my mind and my focus to the race (MTCC) weekend, this time hopping into the car with zero practice or preparation.”

Despite securing a podium in the MTCC, Genevieve did not participate in the podium ceremony. Instead, she rushed to the Porsche esports venue, still in her race suit, fresh out of the car, and extremely tired. Having driven a real car, she described the MTCC as the best warm-up for PESCM.

Being A Woman In Motorsports

Early in her racing career, Genevieve could sense the scepticism. While nobody openly questioned her place as a female driver, the silence and stares spoke volumes. Rather than demanding respect, she earned it by delivering results and proving her pace.

“Over time, I started to gain the respect of my fellow rivals by proving myself out on track. And that’s the beautiful part. [They] pushed me to become the driver I am today and I am eternally grateful for their sportsmanship and respect,” she notes.

Genevieve accepts that some will always doubt whether female drivers can be as fast as their male counterparts, but she fully intends to keep proving them wrong.

Even as series like F1 Academy gain global traction and place a massive spotlight on female talent, the Sarawakian remains unfazed. After all, her goal was never to be the fastest female driver; it was simply to be the fastest driver.

“By aiming to be the best female talent, I would already be further exacerbating the idea that men and women cannot be equals on track, which directly conflicts with the equality that women in motorsports, feminists, and society have worked so hard for.”

Her advice for young girls eyeing a motorsport career is simple: block out the negativity and put in the work. The sport demands immense sacrifice, but resilience always pays off.

“I’d like to think of the analogy of digging for diamonds. To get to it, you need hard labour of digging through dirt and rock to reach it,” she shares. “But many stop right before they hit the diamonds. Never stop, no matter how hard it is. And remember, diamonds are formed under pressure.”

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The modern feeder series ladder to Formula 1 (F1) is clean, clear, and streamlined. But before the FIA unified the tier-three landscape into the Formula 3 (F3) Championship we recognise today, the path was a fragmented, highly competitive web of rival series.

Among the fiercest of these was GP3. This spec series offered drivers the ultimate prize: the chance to race directly in front of F1 team bosses on Grand Prix weekends. Throughout the GP3 era and the modern FIA F3 Championship that followed, this grid has remained notoriously difficult to break into.

From Alice Powell’s historic points finish to Sophia Flörsch’s modern-day campaigns, here is a closer look at the women who have tested and raced in GP3 and F3.

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The Women Who Competed In Formula 3 and GP3

Before the FIA unified the single-seater ladder in 2019, tier-three racing was split. Drivers had to choose between traditional regional F3 championships (which allowed different chassis and engine setups) and the GP3 Series (a spec series that raced exclusively on F1 weekends).

Despite this fragmented and fiercely competitive landscape, a select group of female drivers successfully broke onto these grids.

Alice Powell

Alice Powell entered the GP3 Series in 2012 with Status Grand Prix and established herself as a genuine trailblazer in the fiercely competitive feeder series. Despite stepping into the championship with almost no prior testing time, she quickly adapted to the spec machinery. Her rookie campaign proved she could hold her own against a grid full of Formula 1 hopefuls.

Her defining moment arrived at the notoriously fast Monza circuit, where she made history by finishing eighth in the sprint race. This performance made her the first woman to score points in the GP3 Series. Powell concluded the 2012 season 19th in the overall standings and later made a brief, one-off return for a single weekend at Yas Marina in 2013.

While funding cut her time on the official tier-three F1 ladder short, Powell went on to compete in other regional F3 series, such as British F3 and the MSV F3 Cup.

Vicky Piria

Vicky Piria entered the GP3 Series in 2012 with Trident Racing, contesting the entire 16-race calendar during the championship’s third year. Driving the spec Dallara machinery, she completed a full campaign for the Italian outfit as they made their own team debut in the tier-three category.

While she consistently logged race distance, Piria struggled to break into the points-paying positions against a dense grid of F1 hopefuls. Her standout performance came on the unforgiving streets of Monaco, where she navigated the tight barriers to secure a 12th-place finish in the sprint race. She concluded her single GP3 campaign 26th in the overall standings.

Carmen Jorda

Carmen Jordá competed in the GP3 Series for three full seasons between 2012 and 2014, driving for Ocean Racing Technology, Bamboo Engineering, and Koiranen GP. This extensive track time gave her the longest consecutive run of any female driver during the GP3 era.

Despite her commitment to the series, her time on track proved difficult. Across 44 race starts, she consistently ran at the back of the grid and failed to score a single championship point, with her highest finish being a 13th place at Valencia in 2012.

Following her GP3 stint, she stepped out of the junior racing ladder to take on a Formula 1 development driver role with Lotus, making her one of 11 women in history to be included on a Formula 1 team’s driver line-up.

Samin Gómez

Venezuelan driver Samin Gómez entered the GP3 Series in 2013 following a solid stint in Formula Abarth. Driving for Jenzer Motorsport, she contested the full calendar and secured her career-best result almost immediately, finishing 13th at the season opener in Catalunya.

However, scoring points proved difficult in the highly competitive series, and she ended her rookie year 26th in the overall standings. Gómez later returned to the grid for a partial campaign with Campos Racing in 2015, but was unable to improve upon her previous results before ultimately stepping away from the championship.

Beitske Visser

Beitske Visser experienced only a fleeting taste of the GP3 Series, contesting a brief and fragmented campaign across two seasons. The Dutch driver made her debut with Hilmer Motorsport at the 2014 season opener in Barcelona, before returning the following year for a single outing with Trident at Spa-Francorchamps.

With just four GP3 starts to her name, her track time was too limited to mount a serious points challenge, recording a career-high finish of 15th at Spa. However, this brief tier-three stint did not define her racing trajectory; Visser later found massive success elsewhere, claiming the runner-up spot in the W Series twice and spending her primary endurance racing years competing with the all-female Richard Mille Racing Team.

Tatiana Calderón

Tatiana Calderón is arguably the most successful female driver of the GP3 era, contesting three consecutive seasons between 2016 and 2018. Driving for Arden, DAMS, and Jenzer Motorsport, the Colombian driver steadily built her momentum in the highly competitive spec series, successfully breaking into the top 10 multiple times during her 2016 campaign in Germany and Italy.

She truly hit her stride during her final GP3 season in 2018 with Jenzer Motorsport. Delivering her strongest tier-three campaign, she scored points in five out of nine rounds to finish 16th overall in the championship standings.

Beyond her race results, Calderón’s impact on the series continues today. She recently served as the official test driver for the next-generation Dallara F3 2025 chassis, helping ensure drivers of different body types can properly manage cockpit ergonomics without setup compromises.

Sophia Flörsch

Sophia Flörsch remains the only female driver to compete in the modern FIA F3 Championship era. Demonstrating immense resilience — particularly following her severe high-speed crash at Macau in 2018 — the German driver contested three separate F3 campaigns in 2020, 2023, and 2024, driving for Campos Racing, PHM Racing by Charouz, and Van Amersfoort Racing.

Her defining moment in the tier-three category came during the 2023 season at Spa-Francorchamps. Navigating treacherous, mixed-weather conditions, Flörsch fought her way through the dense field to secure a remarkable seventh-place finish. This historic drive made her the first woman to ever score points in the series.

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The FIA F3 Test in Magny-Cours (2021 and 2022)

To create a bridge for female drivers climbing the single-seater ladder, the FIA held dedicates tests for women who were not actively racing in the FIA F3 championship. These tests were held at Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours, former home of the French GP until 2008, where drivers tested the Dallara F3 19.

2021 Class

Maya Weug

Maya Weug made history in 2021 as the first female driver inducted into the Ferrari Driver Academy, following her victory in the inaugural FIA Girls on Track Rising Stars programme. She later became the first woman to score points in the Formula Regional European Championship (FRECA).

In F1 Academy, Weug established herself as a consistent frontrunner representing Ferrari. She claimed third place overall in 2024 with Prema Racing, which included her maiden single-seater win at Yas Marina. She then improved to finish as the championship runner-up in 2025 with MP Motorsport, adding three more race victories to her record.

Dorianne Pin

Doriane Pin has established herself as one of the most versatile rising talents in modern motorsport. After proving her pace in endurance racing with a Ferrari Challenge Europe title and a class win at the 24 Hours of Spa in 2022, the French driver transitioned into single-seaters and secured the 2025 F1 Academy World Championship.

Her consistent results across different racing disciplines have attracted major manufacturer backing. In 2026, she serves as a development driver for the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team (recently completing a historic test in their F1 machinery) while simultaneously racing LMP2 prototypes in the European Le Mans Series.

Nerea Marti

Spanish racing driver Nerea Martí has built her career by successfully balancing single-seater campaigns with GT racing. She proved her consistency in the F1 Academy, securing fourth place overall in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons with Campos Racing while collecting multiple podiums and a race victory.

Beyond formula cars, she established herself as a frontrunner in sportscars with BMW España Motorsport, claiming class victories in the Iberian Supercars Endurance series and earning a spot in the inaugural BMW M Racing Academy. Her cross-discipline track record recently led Andretti to appoint her as a team ambassador following successful Formula E test outings. This versatility extends beyond the track this year as she takes to the water to compete in the UIM E1 World Championship for LeBron James’ Team AlUla.

Irina Sidorkova

Russian racing driver Irina Sidorkova made a name for herself as a versatile talent who quickly transitioned from touring cars to international single-seaters. After securing the Russian Circuit Racing Series National Junior class championship in 2018, she stepped up to the SMP F4 and Spanish Formula 4 championships, consistently proving her pace.

In 2021, she became the youngest driver to qualify for the all-female W Series and successfully translated that opportunity into a podium finish at the Red Bull Ring during her rookie campaign. More recently, Sidorkova has expanded her repertoire by returning to the Russian Circuit Racing Series and endurance racing, competing as a frontrunner in both the GT4 category and in high-speed sports prototypes.

2022 Class

Abbi Pulling

British racing driver Abbi Pulling has rapidly cemented her reputation as a history-maker on the junior single-seater ladder. Backed by the Alpine Academy, she delivered a dominant, record-breaking campaign to secure the 2024 F1 Academy Championship with Rodin Motorsport, claiming nine victories and standing on the podium in every single race.

Her talent for breaking barriers extends well beyond the all-female series. Pulling made history as the first woman to win a race in the British F4 Championship and later repeated this groundbreaking feat in the GB3 Championship with a commanding pole-to-flag victory at Spa-Francorchamps in 2026. Alongside her formidable single-seater campaigns, she has expanded into electric racing, joining the Nissan Formula E Team as their official rookie and simulator driver.

Hamda Al Qubaisi

Emirati racing driver Hamda Al Qubaisi has consistently broken barriers across the junior single-seater ladder, establishing herself as the most successful female driver in mixed-gender Formula 4 competition.

She made history in 2021 by becoming the first woman to secure a podium finish in the highly competitive Italian F4 Championship, alongside collecting multiple race victories in the F4 UAE and F4 Saudi Arabian series. Competing with MP Motorsport, she proved her pace in the all-female F1 Academy, finishing third overall with four race wins in the inaugural 2023 season before returning in 2024 to represent Red Bull Racing.

Most recently, Al Qubaisi has broadened her motorsport career beyond single-seaters, successfully stepping into prototype sportscar racing with a campaign in the 2025 Ligier European Series.

Chloe Chambers

Chloe Chambers has quickly proven herself as a versatile and record-breaking talent across international single-seater and sportscar competition. A Guinness World Record holder for the fastest vehicle slalom, she transitioned successfully from early campaigns in the US F4 and W Series to become the first female pole-sitter and race winner in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship.

In F1 Academy, Chambers delivered two strong campaigns with Campos Racing, culminating in a standout 2025 season backed by the Red Bull Ford Academy Programme where she secured two victories, seven podiums, and four pole positions to claim third overall in the championship.

Recently expanding her repertoire into professional GT racing, she has since secured victories in the Porsche Sprint Challenge North America and stepped up to the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America series with RAFA Racing in 2026.

Nerea Martí

Nerea Marti replaced the injured Tereza Babičková during the 2022 FIA Formula 3 women’s-only test at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cour.

The Future of Formula 3

Streamlining the fragmented regional series into GP3 and modern F3 provided a clearer path to F1. Yet, this feeder series remains a notoriously difficult category to break into. The last woman to race in the championship was Sophia Flörsch, and only seven women have ever raced in GP3 or F3.

Today, that landscape looks different. Rather than giving drivers a single day in an F3 car, F1 built a subsidised, F4-level series with direct team ties to properly prepare women for the junior single-seater pyramid. Manufacturer-backed programmes now give drivers like Doriane Pin the consistent mileage their predecessors lacked.

This signals a growing pipeline of female talent ready to step up. While securing a modern F3 seat still demands immense backing, the hope is we won’t have to wait long until we see the next female driver competing on the F3 grid.

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Heike began her time in motorsport as a Team Manager for Porsche Kremer Racing at the turn of the millennium. In the time since then, Heike has worked in Sales and Acquisitions at the Sauber Formula 1 Team, become the Head of Partnership Development at the Automobile Club de I’Ouest and is now the Head of Marketing and Communications at Citroën Racing in Formula E.

As you can see, Heike brings a wealth of experience to her role from not only the world of Formula 1, but GP3, the rebranded Formula 3 and the World Endurance Championship too.

It’s Race Week! got the chance to speak with Heike at the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London back in August and from that, we’re now able to put a spotlight on Heike in the third part of our Formula E Spotlight Series.

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What does your role look like over a race weekend?

“Oh, that’s a very complex question. So we are in charge of taking care of partners of media. We invite a lot of media, for example, that we work with as Citroën and they are auto media for example, and we have them discover Formula E. So we take care of them and the markets. So Citroen UK for example is having a fan zone here exhibiting cars. So we, that’s something we, we liaise up front as well.”

What has been your standout moment of the season so far for you?

“Oh, certainly the victory in Mexico, that was crazy because we. Mexico already was a great atmosphere as such for the drivers and so on. And the fans are nice and great. But you know, we were coming back from the podium and we were clapping hands with the fans and the team members could have given interviews and autographs. That was, that was a very, very great moment.”

What is it about your role that you love so much?

“Everything really. I always wanted to work in motorsports and being behind the scene is what I always dreamt of. So being in such a versatile role is very interesting. You have so many different things to look after and make sure that this works.And to be there when you have all these emotions from the racetrack accidents, overtaking maneuvers and then hopefully a podium.”

What advice would you have for anyone looking to follow in your career path?

“I was speaking a little bit at the Girls on Track Activation here, which is really, really great one and at all races. And we always say you need, when you’re passionate, you go for it. You need to accept that you will probably be refused a lot of times if you’re looking to work at motorsport, for example, or probably at any other high level profession as well.

So first of all, not take it personally, I’ve been refused a lot of. Or you meet somebody and you end up where you are, that happens.

And the second one is that if you want to work in motor racing, for example, it’s not enough to say, well, I want to work in motor racing. You should be at the top of what you do in this. So if you’re social media, you should be really good at social media. If you’re an engineer, you should have really, you’re one of the best engineers. And when you’re the mechanic, you should be mechanically very, very good. It’s not sufficient to say, well, I’m a mechanic and I, I would love to work in motorsport. So we try to take the best people.

And in that case, the third advice is that if you can have a little bit of experience before you send your CV to a big company or something like volunteering for a private team, there are a lot of private race teams that look for support during a race weekend or before a race weekend.

For example, if you hand the hand there, then you already know that these people know about motorsport. The smaller championships on top of it, you get the chance to do a lot of things. So it’s a good education.”

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Check back here on It’s Race Week! soon for more spotlights from the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London.

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First woman to win a British F3 race, three-time W Series champion, race winner in Indy NXT …. We could be here for a long time listing all her accomplishments, because she has broken down barriers in every competition she has raced in. But let’s focus on the most recent one: Chadwick recently joined the elite club of women who have driven F1 cars alongside Doriane Pin, Jessica Hawkins, Susie Wolff or the legendary Lella Lombardi.

32 laps around the Portimão circuit in the FW47: that’s what the 28-year-old Jamie Chadwick did last month. She finally had the opportunity to jump into the cockpit of an F1 car as a Williams Ambassador, doing a TCP (Test of Previous Cars) ahead of the Portuguese circuit’s return to the calendar next season.

Chadwick: “It was a phenomenal day and an incredible experience. Few things can prepare you for driving a Formula 1 car at speed around a track like Portimão, but it was everything I imagined and 10 times more”.

And “finally” is the right word, because after 14 years on the track, her talent is indisputable. Opportunities for women in single-seater racing remain exceptionally rare, making an F1 car feel almost out of reach. But shouldn’t a track record like hers be enough?

The Start Of Jamie Chadwick’s Journey

She had been dreaming of the day she would drive an F1 car since the very beginning, when she first started competing in karting at the age of 12. It was a relatively late start compared to other drivers, but that didn’t deter her as she followed her older brother into go-karting. But the fascinating part, the one that came full circle last month is a story that involves her family and her idol: Susie Wolf.

Chadwick’s father got to attend Susie Wolff’s first F1 test with Williams and got an autograph for his daughter, who was 14 at the time and competing in karting. 11 years later, Jamie is the one behind the wheel, hoping to inspire the same feeling Susie inspired in her as a young girl.

“I’m incredibly grateful to Atlassian Williams F1 Team for this opportunity. I remember being young and watching Wolff step into a Williams F1 car and how much that inspired my own journey”, Chadwick said.

In 2010, she began collecting wins and podiums in the junior series, showing her talent, and went on to win the Ginetta Junior Scholarship in 2013. She then made the jump to endurance racing, which would later bring her closer to single-seaters. Fast-forward to 2015, when she won the British GT4 Championship with Beechdean Aston Martin Racing, making history as both the youngest driver and the first woman to claim the title at just 16.

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The Jump To Single-Seaters

2017 is the year she set her path straight to F1, and moved to single-seaters as the only woman on the grid. It only took Chadwick one rookie year to adapt before she won a race in 2018, making history at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit.

Williams came knocking after that outstanding season, and she went on to test in Formula E and compete in the W Series Championships, among other things. After reaching the top, she decided to cross the ocean, going all on Indy NXT with Andretti. True to her method, a pole and win came in her second year, once she had adapted to the new category. In her rookie year, she had finished 12th in the championship.

Today, she competes in the European Le Mans Series with Genesis Magma Racing, racing at the highest level and currently sitting third in the championship standings. After helping the team secure three race victories last season, Chadwick returned this year to build on that momentum.

The Next Step For Jamie Chadwick

Seeing Chadwick behind the wheel offers a spark of hope, particularly coming in the same year F1 Academy champion Doriane Pin drove the Mercedes. Yet it raises an inevitable question: why did it take so long for a driver of Chadwick’s calibre to get this opportunity? While a test drive is a welcome milestone, the truly decisive step forward would be seeing her secure a full-time seat in Formula 2.

While long overdue, it remains a meaningful step forward, as it gives her experience and puts her in a stronger, more prominent position to do this again in the future. It’s a step closer to F1, for her and for every woman coming up behind her, because at the end of the day, Chadwick continues to open doors for future generations of women in motorsport.

Examples like this prove that progress is possible and, hopefully sooner rather than later, we will see a true ladder for women in motorsport take shape. They may seem like small steps, but they are laying the groundwork for a future where the path is finally wide open.

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For 19 years, the Sepang International Circuit was Formula 1’s ultimate endurance test: a brutal, high-speed crucible built on a 260-hectare swamp next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Before the Malaysian Grand Prix fell off the calendar in 2017 due to rising costs and poor ticket sales, this Hermann Tilke masterpiece was legendary among fans and drivers for demanding absolute physical and mental perfection.

While many will remember Sepang for being an iconic venue to the pinnacle of motorsports racing, there is something fans should remember as F1 returns to Malaysia for the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix: the track has and still is the domain of grassroots racing and regional championships. From drivers building their single-seaters to unique racing categories, Sepang has attracted its fair share of female talents over the years.

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The Single-Seater Pipeline

Doriane Pin

Before F1 ACADEMY, Doriane Pin needed to prove herself in open-wheel racing. Her testing ground? The Sepang International Circuit. Transitioning from LMP2 endurance prototypes, Doriane made her single-seater debut in the 2023 Formula 4 South East Asia Championship.

Across two rounds and six races at Sepang, she delivered immediate results. She secured four podiums and claimed her maiden open-wheel victory by a commanding 5.3-second margin. Despite missing the opening round, she finished second in the overall standings and took the rookie title.

Kareen Kaur

At 16, Kareen Kaur is rewriting Singaporean motorsport history. She broke ground as the nation’s first female Formula 4 driver and built her single-seater foundation directly on the tarmac of the Sepang International Circuit.

Already the youngest Southeast Asian female driver to score points in an FIA-sanctioned Formula 4 race on her very first competitive weekend, the Singaporean made her debut in Sepang during the 2025 Formula 4 Southeast Asia Championship.

She used the demanding 5.54km track as her primary testing ground to refine her racecraft and data analysis. Recently selected for the 2026 F1 Academy Rookie Test, Kaur represents a promising wave of young talent charting a course to Formula 1.

Biana Bustamante

An F1 ACADEMY graduate who stepped up to the Eurocup-3 Championship, Bianca Bustamante built her open-wheel foundation at the Sepang International Circuit.

When she left karting for single-seaters, the Filipina driver used the demanding 5.54km track to master heavier F4 machinery. During intensive testing with BlackArts Racing, she tackled the circuit’s complex layout to refine her racecraft and sharpen her data analysis skills.

This early track time provided crucial mileage. It built her confidence, prepared her for the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship, and launched her journey onto today’s European single-seater grid.

The Endurance Specialist

Leona Chin

For nearly two decades, Leona Chin has been the veteran anchor of Malaysian motorsport and a Sepang 1000km legend. Best known as the nation’s “Drift Queen,” her career spans everything from rally to GT racing.

The Subang-bred driver capped a dominant 2021 season by securing both the Malaysia Championship Series (MCS) Touring Car title and an outright victory at the Sepang 1,000km Endurance race.

Her track record at Sepang remains formidable. Last year, she won the GTC category at the 12 Hours of Sepang, following it up with 2026 Lotus Cup China podiums despite mechanical hurdles and driving on worn tyres.

Sophia Zara

Sophia Zara is one of the most promising talents in Malaysia’s motorsport scene. Emerging as a 15-year-old phenom who built her racecraft on Sepang’s demanding 5.54km track, she transitioned seamlessly from real-world tarmac to e-sports, where she clinched a Gold Medal in Sim Racing at SUKMA 2026.

Partnering with her father in the gruelling Sepang 1000km, Zara demonstrated maturity far beyond her years. Her performance secured a podium finish in only her third major track appearance, cementing her name in the Malaysia Book of Records as the youngest female podium finisher in an endurance race.

Faye Kusairi

Faye Kusairi built her reputation on the tarmac rather than relying on her celebrity status. She started in grassroots gymkhana and honed her car control in the Malaysia Speed Festival before making history at the Sepang International Circuit. In 2016, she became the first female overall winner of the Sepang 1000km, outlasting the field in a Proton Suprima S.

She returned to the endurance race in 2019 with a Proton R3 all-female team. A qualifying issue relegated them to 26th on the starting grid. Unfazed, Kusairi and her teammates fought through the pack for nine hours to secure a sixth-place overall finish.

Touring Cars and Regional Champions

Farah Irdina

A former equestrian, Farah Irdina proves that competitive discipline translates anywhere. Balancing the gruelling demands of her Certificate in Legal Practice with a fierce drive to race, the law graduate navigated her early motorsport journey largely on her own.

In 2024, Farah stepped up to circuit racing in the Malaysia Championship Series, tackling the Sepang International Circuit in a Honda Fit. She used the demanding 5.54km track to sharpen her racecraft in the highly competitive Malaysia Touring Car class. Beyond Sepang, the FIA Silver-rated driver continues to expand her footprint, representing Malaysia against a global grid at the Formula Woman Nations Cup.

Genevieve Herrrietta Ooi

Genevieve Henrietta Ooi proves that virtual precision translates flawlessly to real-world tarmac. As a sim-racer turned real-world competitor who turned heads in the 2026 Malaysia Touring Car Championship, the 21-year-old Sarawakian is rapidly carving out her space in Malaysian motorsport.

Developed through Toyota’s Young Talent Development Programme, she took on the ademanding Sepang International Circuit with absolute poise. Competing in the MTCC, she secured top-five finishes and even tackled the gruelling Sepang 1000km endurance race alongside Alister Yoong.

Balancing physical racing at Sepang with a SUKMA gold medal in sim racing, Genevieve represents an exciting hybrid generation of motorsport talent.

Gladys Lam

One of Singapore’s most prominent active female racers, Gladys Lam launched her competitive career directly on Sepang’s tarmac. When a last-minute entry opened at the 2019 Malaysia Speed Festival (MSF) on her 24th birthday, she jumped into the car without a single practice session — and took first place in the women’s category.

Since that breakthrough, Lam has secured two first-place MSF trophies at Sepang. She recently returned to the circuit for the 2025 Singapore Touring Car Challenge, a Motul 12 Hours of Sepang support race, where she clinched pole position in her class. With over 30 races across Asia under her belt, Lam proves her grassroots foundation at Sepang set the pace for a strong career in touring cars.

Sepang: The Home of Grassroots Racing

While the world remembers Sepang for its glory days of hosting the Malaysian Grand Prix, its lifeblood has always been grassroots racing. The grandstands might not echo with the roar of V10 engines anymore, but Sepang is far from a relic.

This circuit demands perfection from everyone who tackles its sweeping corners, regardless of their machinery or budget. For women climbing the motorsport ladder, Sepang offers an unforgiving but rewarding classroom.

It is where raw talent meets real-world racecraft, shaping a new generation of drivers ready to take on the global stage. Regardless of where they are in their careers, the women competing here ensure the circuit’s history is still being written.

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With a background working on the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains and as a Team Lead at Oxford Brooke Racing, Tessa Waldron has now moved over to Fortescue - one of the world’s largest, lowest-cost iron ore producers that has recently joined forces with Formula E. Starting out as a Trackside HV Battery Technician, Tessa is now in the role of Motorsport Track Operations Engineer.

It’s Race Week! got the chance to speak with Tessa at the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London back in August and from that, we’re now able to put a spotlight on Tessa in the second part of our Formula E Spotlight Series.

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How would you describe in a nutshell what you do with Fortescue?

“I’m an engineer for Fortiscue Zero Motorsport Advanced Engineering and that involves working trackside where we have to maintain our products that run in Formula E. I look after the pit boosts, which is the fast charger that runs in Formula E. We do things like health checks, overall unit maintenance to make sure all the teams are getting the best product possible for the race weekend.”

And over a race weekend what does that look like? Do you kind of keep testing stuff over the course of the weekend or is there a procedure?

“Yeah, so there’s things like they have to do a mandatory full power in FP1. This is a full power before the actual race event itself to make sure everything is working correctly. They then do what’s called a low power in FP2, again just to check everything’s working. Communications between the car and the pit boost and the pit boost and the cable just to make sure there’s nothing left to worry about before it gets to the race.”

So, a standout moment for you either from something you’ve observed or just from a moment within your role that you’ve particularly loved?

“So, I was a technician at the beginning of the season and I’ve moved into an engineering role. And Fortescue’s been really good that they push people, they allow people to grow and to move into those kinds of roles. You can start as a technician and move into an engineering role because the whole team supports you. You learn off the other engineers and everyone kind of teaches each other and it makes the team work so well. It gels together to fix issues, solve issues and make sure issues don’t happen in the first place.”

What is it about your role that you love so much?

“I enjoy being trackside because it’s so dynamic, it’s so different to an office environment. When you’re trackside every day is literally different. It can be hard to describe what you do day to day because it changes so much but that’s what I enjoy and it can just be such a range of things and it means you learn as well when every day is different. You have to be able to be dynamic and adapt to the situations that come.”

And what advice would you have for someone who’s seeing this kind of a role and would like to follow in your footsteps or at least try it out?

“I’d say go for it. I think motorsport is such a great environment to be a part of because everyone’s very like-minded. It’s tough, like it’s very difficult to get trackside in Formula E, F1, all the trackside sports. But if you keep pushing and keep putting in the effort and speaking to people, speaking to people. Like networking is the most important thing. Like we say in motorsport, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And it’s making sure you get those connections in and building those relationships.”

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Check back here on It’s Race Week! soon for more spotlights from the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London.

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Enjoying what you do for a living is what we should all aim for. When you’re a kid, this usually comes very naturally in everything you do. Natalia Granada was enjoying playing basketball, and she was very good at it. But when she saw how much fun her twin brother Marc was having racing in karting every weekend, she decided to put all her eggs in that basket and fully embrace racing.

Today, the 18-year-old Spaniard is in her first season of F1 ACADEMY, the all-female single-seater series on the Formula 1 calendar, with Sephora backing her. We caught up with her at Round 4 in Zandvoort.

“My brother and I started because Formula 1 was always on at home, and I remember one day my brother asked, ‘hey, how did Fernando Alonso get into Formula 1? How did he start?’ And my father had raced a couple of amateur races at Montmeló and knew the team they’d done that race with.”

It’s not common for twins to race together, but with that family history and a karting track only six minutes from home, it’s easy to see how it happened. Granada and her brother started karting at 11, though in different categories for the first year. After that, they lined up against each other as cadets, with the whole family involved every step of the way.

“When we started with my brother, my father was my mechanic, we had a friend of ours we’d met there at the track who worked as my brother’s mechanic, my mother helped us with everything else. We brought the trailer or the van ourselves, the fuel, the tires, we did everything ourselves, and in the end that was our way of being together. It’s always been a very family-oriented thing, and it’s something we still try to hold on to today,” Granada said.

When COVID brought the world to a halt, their karting slowed down too, but they kept working until bigger opportunities came along. They raced in the Spanish National Championship and also got international chances in Italy and the European Championship, where they spent two years in the junior category. That run led to Granada joining Iron Dames, an all-female racing project known for backing women drivers as they move up the ladder, in the senior category.

Learning From The People in Her Corner

Racing has never been just a family affair for Granada. Along the way, other people opened doors for her too. Miguel Molina, the Spanish driver who has become something of a mentor to her, was the one who introduced her to Iron Dames. That program pushed her career beyond karting and gave her the chance to start testing cars. It still backs her today, even if its program is smaller than in recent years, and she says she is happy to represent them and give something back.

Molina’s own story left a mark on her, even if it reached her secondhand. Miguel’s father, Mariano, has also been a key figure in her career and was set to join her in Zandvoort. He once told her about one of Miguel’s early races in DTM with Audi. Miguel crashed the car, and when he came back to the garage, his boss told him to keep pushing and go flat out again. Granada admits she may not have every detail right, but the message stuck.

That mindset was tested quickly this season. Before her first test in China, Granada had barely raced for months, and she barely knew the team. The test was hard, and it showed her how much work was ahead. “There was a lot of work between the official test and the race, not on track, but a lot of work behind the scenes, many hours of thinking, talking, going back over everything that happened.”

The work paid off, first in qualifying, where she earned a front-row start, and then in the race itself. She stood on the podium in her very first race, in China. “Very sweet,” she calls that feeling, and she remembers it fondly.

A New Territory

Her first season has also introduced her to a world she wasn’t expecting. Sephora, a brand that had never before been involved in motorsport, is backing her this year. Granada is candid that beauty was never her territory. Growing up with a brother, she mostly stole his clothes. “People who know me know it’s definitely been a change,” she says. What she values is that the partnership didn’t ask her to become someone else. For her, being a driver and embracing a more feminine side are two things that can coexist without one defining the other.

“On track, I try to show the kind of driver I want to be, and it has nothing to do with ... putting on makeup, doing my hair, and showing that more feminine side. They’re two things we can keep separate.”

She is still learning, and says so with a smile, adding that she has half a season left to get better at it. But she stresses that Sephora has been flexible from the start and has never pushed her to do or represent anything that didn’t feel like her. “I’m a fairly open person when it comes to learning new things, and yes, they’ve brought me into a world I didn’t know, but I’m glad I did.”

Balancing Racing With School “Has Been Hard”

On top of the sponsor commitments and a racing calendar that spans the globe, there’s one more thing demanding her focus: school. Granada always studied at a British school in her hometown in Catalonia, but a couple of years ago, she moved to an online one so her studies could keep up with a travel calendar that kept growing once Iron Dames came into the picture. Balancing school and racing, she admits, “has been hard.” She did all of sixth form online and finished this year.

Things haven’t gone entirely to plan, though. The British exam system runs on fixed dates, a bit like the Spanish university entrance exams, and racing doesn’t leave much room to move around them. Of the twelve exams she wanted to sit, she could only take one. With more races on the calendar, next summer isn’t looking easy either. Still, she isn’t giving up on it. She is looking for new dates and for a next step that adapts to her pace of life, hoping to start something new this autumn that fits her lifestyle. Her determination to keep studying comes straight from home. Just like the trailer, the fuel and the tires, education is something her family has always treated as essential.

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Zandvoort Brought Momentum

With all of that on her plate, Granada arrived in Zandvoort at the midpoint of her first season, feeling good. The test a month earlier had gone well, and she said the team was better prepared than ever. Results hadn’t fully shown it yet, but she pointed to the pace they found in Canada, in parts of Silverstone and in that Zandvoort test as proof they were heading the right way.

“What has the first half of the season taught me? So many things. Everything. I think it's shown me a lot about who I am as a driver, the things I need to work on, my strengths, my weaknesses. And with the team I have around me, we're very clear on the direction we want to go.”

The Dutch weekend started with a milestone. Granada qualified third, her first time in the top three in qualifying. But the Reverse Grid race didn’t follow the script. On lap 2, she hit the wall trying to pass Emma Felbermayr at Turn 3, and the Safety Car came out as the marshals recovered the damaged Sephora car. Her answer came in the Feature Race. She finished fourth, collecting solid points that moved her up to ninth in the standings with two rounds left. And the momentum carried beyond the weekend: in the testing days that followed in Navarra, Spain, she topped the timesheets on day one.

Her Passion Away From the Track

When the helmet comes off, and she’s back home, there’s one thing that helps her switch off: cooking. She enjoys all of it, but especially sushi, which she started making at home years ago. It began as a way to take some weight off her mother, who tends to end up handling everything, and slowly became a real passion.

“When I’m cooking, I put on my show or my music, and I lose myself in it for however long it takes. It makes me happy.”

At 18, Granada is one of the young Spanish drivers making a name for themselves in the racing world, following in the footsteps of compatriots who have raced in F1 ACADEMY, like Marta García, the series’ first champion, and Nerea Martí, who has since moved on to E1. With two rounds left, the second half of her season shows promise, but whatever comes next, Natalia Granada’s story in motorsport is only getting started.

Keep an eye out for her at Round 5 of the F1 ACADEMY championship in Austin, United States, October 22 to 25.

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Having previously worked for the Mercedes Formula 1 Team and having now switched over to Williams at the start of 2026, Sacha Smith doesn’t just work on one frontier. Smith also works with a number of drivers across motorsport - including the recently crowned Indy NXT Champion Nikita Johnson, as well as on the front line of electric motorsport, helping the Cupra Kiro Team as well as its drivers achieve their best over the course of a race weekend.

Part of the team since December 2025, Sacha has now experienced a full season of Formula E in her role as Head Performance Coach and the wide variety that this role can entail. It’s Race Week! got the chance to speak with Sacha at the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London back in August and from that, we’re now able to put a spotlight on Sacha in the first part of our Formula E Spotlight Series.

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What does your role involve over a race weekend like this?

“So, at a race weekend, primarily I look after our drivers, making sure they’re fed, they’re watered, they’ve slept well, they have their kit ready, they’re on time to meetings, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, can be difficult sometimes!”

I’m not saying anything!

“Yeah, I’m not going to say names, but…! And then I also look after the wider team, so kind of filling up water bottles, making sure if there’s any injuries, I can look after them, I can tape up necks, tape up arms, especially the mechanics, if they’ve got bad knees or whatnot, just looking after that. And generally just trying to be a bit of positive energy in the space, to be honest. But, yeah, I’d say that’s the general kind of part of the role, but picking up bits here and there, if someone needs a coffee, if someone needs a pass…”

You’re Superwoman.

“Well, you could say that!”

I can say it! What does that look like, then, in terms of a race weekend? Do you have an average number of injuries, shall we say, to deal with, or what is it like?

“It’s just kind of monitoring. For example, if someone’s complaining of some aches and pains, just giving them the correct medical assistance, so whether that means taping them up, whether that means giving them some medicine or telling them to rest, or giving them a rehab programme for a race weekend, then that’s sometimes what I do. But, yeah, it’s not really like we have X number of injuries, it’s just, fingers crossed, nobody has injuries for me!”

If one of the drivers has a crash, how involved are you in looking after that after the initial checks by the medical team?

“Yeah, so after the initial checks by the medical team, I’ll then be the next port of call, so we’ll just check, you know, how are they feeling, are they ready for the next session, do we need to do anything in the interim to allow them to facilitate the next session. Yeah, I’d say I’m probably after medical assistance, who they come to next, and then if they need any rehab outside of a race weekend again, I’ll be the port of call. So yeah, it’s pretty, like, it’s a nice role. I’m quite involved at race weekends, they can reach out to me as and when, away from a race weekend, it’s just nice for them to know that there’s someone they can go to if they need it.”

Standout moment of the season for you so far?

“Ooh. That’s really hard, because honestly, I mean, I’ve worked in a lot of race series and a lot of

different teams, whether that’s individuals, drivers, for a whole team. And honestly, I’ve had probably some of the funniest moments of my career so far. Standout moment, obviously, on track, would have to be the Pepe podium in Monaco. Obviously, that was a bit of a bittersweet moment with Dan’s situation, but I think just seeing him from the start of the season with what happened and then that, it was massive, it was amazing. And also Dan’s double pole, I think for us, it was a massive turning point for him and made him feel positive about his championship this year.”

And last one, any advice you’d have for any young women looking to follow in the same role as you?

“Oh yeah, absolutely. I think the main thing would be to ensure that you’re looking for opportunities wherever they are. I was quite set on, I want to work in F1, and then I got to the point where I was understanding you don’t just jump into a situation like that. You really do have to work your way up through the ranks. And if anything, that’s taught me so much more because I feel like as a performance coach, you can really make an impact with younger drivers and developmental drivers. When you’re stepping into the world of F1, they are already at the peak of their performance. You know, I can make tiny little minuscule changes, but for someone in GB4 or Ginetta Juniors, for example, I can make such a huge impact on their career. And that’s really, really fulfilling, yeah. So anyone trying to get into the sport, obviously reach out to people like myself that are in the roles that you want to be in. Ask them what their pathway work was. Especially in the performance coach sector, we all have very different backgrounds. Some people are physiotherapists, some people are sports scientists like myself. And then some people have come from being an athlete and then transitioned into that role. So on the whole, I would say, yeah, just make your network as big as possible. Get your face seen, whether that’s volunteering, whether that’s shadowing. And then you’ll be able to, yeah, get your face out there and people will know who you are.”

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Check back here on It’s Race Week! soon for more spotlights from the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London.

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Over the last few seasons of Formula E, the series and its competing teams have brought female drivers on board in varying capacities. Since 2024, regulations require teams to field at least one female driver during the now-annual Formula E Women’s Test.

From familiar faces like Marta Garcia, Abbi Pulling, and Bianca Bustamante to up-and-coming talents like Jessica Edgar and Juju Noda, making female competitors a natural part of the series is clearly on Formula E’s agenda. Much like Extreme H and the E1 Series, the championship is working toward seeing full-time female drivers on the grid in the near future.

Several of these women attended the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London this past August, including Ella Lloyd and Abbi Pulling. During that weekend, Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds also laid out a specific timeframe for securing women in full-time seats, telling reporters:

“Our ambition will be within the next two to three years that we see women competing at the championship level alongside the elite male racing drivers you see on the grid here.”

In that same interview, Dodds noted that while dedicated testing sessions have successfully placed drivers into development roles, the series must force the next step to close the gap to an actual race seat, hinting at a “massive expansion” of the programme.

We sat down with two of the other female drivers in attendance that weekend (Chloe Chambers of Mahindra Racing and Alice Powell of Envision Racing) to discuss their respective roles, the latest season, and what a Formula E race weekend looks like for them.

Earning The Role In Formula E

Though the series has gone to incredible lengths to increase female participation, a development role in Formula E still requires a proven ability to navigate complex electric machinery, especially with the introduction of GEN4 in 2027.

For Chloe Chambers, strong performances in F1 ACADEMY paved the path to Mahindra Racing. After a promising initial Formula E outing at a women’s test with Andretti, the paddock tracked her progress, and Mahindra Racing took notice. Chambers rewarded their interest by topping the timing sheets at a subsequent pre-season women’s test in Valencia, securing her place as their official Test and Development Driver and debuting in the role at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Meanwhile, Alice Powell’s tenure at Envision Racing is built on years of trust and highly technical engineering feedback. She had been involved with the team since 2019, but the Briton only stepped into the team’s machinery during the 2020 rookie test in Marrakesh. Powell’s ability to quickly grasp the car’s demands, combined with her precise technical feedback, saw her become Test, Development and Simulator Driver by 2021. She has retained this role as a core fixture of the British squad ever since.

Settling Into The Life As Test and Development Driver

Once embedded in the team, race weekend responsibilities vary by driver. For Chambers, the role offers a rare chance to step back from the wheel and observe a world championship garage in action.

“For me, these race weekends are a little more relaxed. I get to sit in on the engineering meetings and then watch the sessions from engineering. It’s nice to be able to just learn and hopefully take some things back with me into my own racing that I hear from the team and from the drivers.”

Part of that learning curve means adapting to Formula E’s condensed schedule. Unlike traditional series that spread practice, qualifying, and the race across three days, Formula E fits every on-track session into a single day. On double-header weekends, they repeat the format the following day.

“I really like that because it makes your trips a little shorter. It also kind of puts the pressure on the teams a lot, and the drivers as well to perform quickly and to get your feedback in quickly, get your changes done quickly, and to be able to reset your mindset for, say, going into qualifying for practice and then into the race for qualifying.”

This fast-paced environment, combined with occasional seat time, helps Chambers build a technical foundation that sets her apart from competitors racing strictly in junior formulas. She gained valuable track time with a few outings during the women’s test, got behind the wheel of the GEN3 Evo during the Miami E-Prix Rookie Free Practice session, and drove it again at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

“That time in the car is so rare for drivers outside of the full-season drivers already. So, even just a day extra in the car that I can get compared to anybody else really is going to be a good opportunity to take with me in case I ever do end up back in the car for a last-minute deal.”

From Track to Simulator: How A Test and Development Driver Contributes To The Team

Across the paddock at Envision Racing, Alice Powell balances a multifaceted role. While she jokes that her weekend pass simply reads “guest management” as she guides upcoming title sponsors like Paysafe around the current car ahead of their major role in the team’s GEN4 era next year, her technical contribution remains a staple for the team.

Beyond Formula E, Powell’s schedule is notoriously packed. She is heavily involved in broadcasting and commentary for Formula 1 across various networks and continues to help coach drivers such as Abbi Pulling. Yet, her core development work revolves around translating real-world data from the track back to the simulator at base.

“Trying to get the sim as close to the real car is obviously difficult. It’s what the sim team does back at base so well. And I think that’s important for the main drivers, that when they do come and jump in, everything’s all set up and it tries to feel as similar as possible. So, I think for me to have that experience and pass my feedback on, I think it’s great.”

Having taken part in five Formula E tests with Envision Racing, most recently driving the GEN3 Evo at Valencia in 2025, Powell uses these sessions to maintain that correlation, ensuring the simulator behaves exactly like the physical car.

“It helps with me getting some time in the car to then translate that across to the simulator. So, I find them really useful to take part in, and obviously I’ve been part of the team since 2019. So, for them to still sort of have that trust and that faith in me, and I would say I’m a pair of safe hands to go out with is really nice.”

Building the Foundation for the Future

Beyond the technical data, development roles immerse drivers in the human element of an elite racing team. Powell points to this culture as a highlight of her long tenure with Envision.

“I think it’s just such a nice group of people. There’s people that are still here from when I joined. Everyone that has joined since, people move on and stuff, and new people come in. It’s always friendly. It’s such a friendly, homely atmosphere.”

Despite her highly technical role, Powell remains deeply invested in the team’s on-track fortunes. She points to Joel Eriksson securing his first podium at the 2026 Shanghai E-Prix — the team’s home race — as a major highlight with the team this year. The two crossed paths when Eriksson was a reserve driver before stepping up to a main seat.

Envision Racing has had its fair share of tough moments throughout Formula E too. The team has suffered severe mid-season slumps and agonising missed opportunities, particularly their struggle to maintain championship form during the highly competitive middle stretch of the recent GEN3 era.

Looking ahead to the finale, Powell noted the thrill of watching the action unfold from the garage.

“Seb was looking really, really strong, just missing out in the final group in qualifying. So, who knows? I think it will probably be carnage up front! And I’m actually just so excited for the race as a whole. Going down to the wire for a Championship is always exciting. I know we’re not part of it, but I think everyone is going to be watching in anticipation.”

As Formula E pushes toward Jeff Dodds’ ambition of a mixed-gender grid within the next three years, embedding drivers like Chambers and Powell into the day-to-day operations of a race weekend serves as a necessary bridge. By exposing them to the intense, highly technical reality of the paddock, the series is laying the groundwork for when a full-time seat finally opens up.

IndyCar and its Feeder Series have a long history of women competing within its ranks from the 1970s onwards until as recently as this year when Katherine Legge entered the Indianapolis 500. While drivers such as Ana Beatriz drove for large majorities of an entire IndyCar season, the series hasn’t seen a full time female driver Danica Patrick competed for the entire year back in 2011. Instead, we’ve witnessed drivers like Pippa Mann and Tatiana Calderon enter and re-enter the series over a number of years to compete in a handful of races with large gaps in between.

In Indy NXT too, we’ve not had a full time driver since Hailee Deegan in 2025.

But could all that be about to change? 2028 might just be a turning point.

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Earlier this year, IndyCar announced and revealed its brand new car which will debut in 2028. There was a lot to love about the new car from the increased power, the graphic displays and the aerodynamic packages. But one of the other new elements to the car that was unveiled was the fact that the cockpit had also been completely redesigned so that it would be better able to accommodate a larger set of body types. While some took this to mean that taller and wider drivers would now be able to fit into the car with ease - it also reminded others of a similar occurrence from just a few years ago.

Formula 2 and Formula 3 redesigned their cars back in 2024 with part of the aim for the change being to enable the cars to better cater towards female drivers for if and when they entered the series. Sophia Flörsch and Tatiana Calderón were key parts to making sure this transition was successful as they tested the new cars out during development. While on paper and from testing, these changes would appear to have been successful, none of the teams in either series since then have actually signed a female driver for a single race, let alone an entire season, for the world to see how much has actually changed.

With IndyCar’s announcement of their 2028 offering, the same thoughts began to stir once again. With five women having competed in Indy NXT since its rebrand, with Jamie Chadwick being the most successful of these, the Feeder Series to IndyCar itself has shown that women can come and compete and not simply make up the numbers on the grid. Perhaps with this redesign for 2028, we’ll see a few more enter the series in 2027 after a drought of female talent on the grid this year and then make that final step up into the top tier of IndyCar.

What’s more, IndyCar has a real opportunity here to outwit and outclass its main rival in Formula 1. The latter hasn’t seen a female driver in any Grand Prix weekend session since Susie Wolff back in 2014. While drivers like Jessica Hawkins and Doriane Pin have driven in F1 machinery in private tests, it’s the closest any woman has come in over a decade. F1 Academy too appears to be struggling to deliver on its ambition to place any of its drivers onto the next wrung up the motorsport ladder once their time in the F1A series has come to an end. None of the Champions of the series have made it to Formula 3, nevermind any of the other drivers linked with Formula 1 teams. Just look at Maya Weug’s recent announcement about her struggles in 2026 to see just the latest example of this.

While the cost of motorsport is still high and is always a factor, perhaps Indy NXT and by extension IndyCar, is where the answer lies for these drivers instead. It’s worked for other drivers who were only able to rise as high as Formula 2, such as Christian Lundgaard and Marcus Armstrong, so why couldn’t it be the solution here again?

Moreover, you have to go all the way back to 2017 for a driver who won the Indy NXT Championship to not have made it into IndyCar for at least one full season afterwards. You won’t have to win the Championship to get your chance to race at the top of the IndyCar ladder either. Just look at Jacob Abel and Caio Collet as examples of this. Pippa Mann and Ana Beatriz are also two female drivers who didn’t win the Championship in Indy Lights but were still able to race in the IndyCar Series. It can be done - it has been done - and it can happen again.

There are teams in IndyCar too that have fielded female drivers over the years with Dayle Coyne Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold the principal two amongst these but with Andretti also included in the list as the team for whom Danica Patrick raced for and stood on the podium with, including her win in Japan.

Relationships between Indy NXT and IndyCar teams have also strengthened over the last couple of years, making that jump up theoretically smoother and more straightforward for the drivers and demonstrates a clear pipeline through which for talent to flow.

IndyCar’s history of female drivers, both part-time and full-time since the 1970s combined with the streamlining of its relationship with Indy NXT teams and its brand new completely redesigned car for 2028 means that this could be the best chance for almost two decades for a woman to compete in the series full time. Thanks in part to series like F1 Academy, female focused brands and companies are seeing the advantages of getting involved in motorsport too, potentially at least partly solving the sponsorship/financial problem that still plagues all drivers. For the teams too, the marketability and good PR that would come off the back of such a signing would be incredible. The more one sits with the idea, the more it makes sense.

If we were to see a female driver in 2028 in IndyCar, who would it be and are there any good enough to take on the challenge of IndyCar? In short, yes. The possibilities are vast but given the press attention on them and the optics for IndyCar to get one over on a goliath like Formula 1, drivers such as Marta Garcia, Sophia Flörsch, Maya Weug, and Abbi Pulling all come to mind as immediate contenders. Bianca Bustamante too, currently competing in the Europ-Cup 3 Series for Palou Motorsport, owned by reigning IndyCar Champion Álex Palou also comes to mind given the links between the team for which she competes and IndyCar through Palou. A season in Indy NXT in 2027 would help each of them learn many of the tracks that IndyCar races on and to establish and build relationships with teams in IndyCar too.

What’s more, a partnership with an organisation such as the Shift Up Now Foundation would help these drivers to solidify their presence in the United States of America and Canada while also opening up other avenues of racing for the drivers too.

But this isn’t the only tool in the arsenal that could be used. Sim Racing has been on the rise over the last decade and we’ve seen female drivers use this to their advantage when it comes to staying in touch with the racing world when times are tough. Nina Gademan is the best example of this as she went from Sim Racing to a Wild Card Entry at her home race in Zandvoort in F1 Academy which led to her securing a full time seat on the grid, backed by the Alpine F1 Team, with two wins and three podiums to her name already. IndyCar already has an established relationship with iRacing which drivers and teams use for their simulator work and the series has also announced a IndyCar specific video game to be launched next year.

At the Global Games Show 2026 earlier this year, many of the discussions were focused around the evolution and impact of video games and how they’re being used to develop meaningful projects and communities both online and in the real world. This IndyCar/iRacing relationship and the expansion of it with the launch of this video game is a natural example of this theory in action and the application of it to get a female racing driver on the Indy NXT and IndyCar grids over the next two years is clear to see.

IndyCar is on the rise. So are women in motorsport across the globe. At a time where Formula 1 is attempting to figure out what it has to do to stay fresh and both attract and retain its audience, their American cousins could beat them to the punch. The talent is there. The resources to develop that talent are continuously evolving and becoming more and more accessible. The pipeline for progress is open and new revenue streams and opportunities are available that simply weren’t a decade ago. With a growing audience, not just at home in America, but around the world, IndyCar has been looking at how best to keep building this momentum and in doing so, may have just created some of the best conditions we’ve seen in recent years to female driving talent to not just enter the series, but to stay there.

Will we see a female IndyCar driver in 2028? We can only hope.

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The third round of the Kyojo Cup took place at the Fuji Speedway earlier this month. With a traffic intensive Sprint Race to kick off the weekend and a downpour of rain for Sunday’s Final Race, this latest installment of the all-female racing series was perhaps the most intense and challenging yet.

With two rounds left to go this season that bookend the month of October and ease us into the start of November, the direction of the Championship is becoming clearer and clearer with four drivers looking like the favourites for the title. But there was more than just the sharp end of the Championship at play this time out with a number of other fascinating storylines having their latest chapters written as the Kyojo Cup went racing once again.

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Championship Hopefuls

Consistency is key for success in motorsport and the top four drivers in the Kyojo Cup Championship are proving this once again.

Following a difficult second round of her campaign, Riona Tomishita bounced back in style this time out with a dominant Sprint Race win which she then followed up with a second place finish - having qualified in Pole Position for both races. She now leads the standings by two points over Aimi Saito. Saito herself collected two third place finishes across the weekend to keep her Championship hopes alive. Her fifth place finish at the opening round back in May remains her lowest finishing position of the season so far.

Less than twenty points back from Tomishita in third place overall is Joanne Ciconte. While she didn’t grace the podium this time around, her two fourth place finishes after starting in eighth place for the former and in fourth place for the latter shows just how capable the young Australian is. This was especially true in such wet conditions as were present for Sunday’s race where the smallest mistake could have seen you tumbling down the order. While starting in fourth and finishing in fourth may not look like much on paper, when the full context is put into consideration, the achievement can be better appreciated. What’s more, Ciconte set the fastest lap of the race on Sunday too - no mean feat.

Eight points back from her sits Rio Shimono. The Japanese driver had the inverse results from Tomishita as she finished in second place on Saturday before taking the win on Sunday, having started alongside Tomishita on the front row of the grid. This third round of the Championship has been her strongest yet and has now propelled her into a position of having an outside shot at the Championship.

Standouts from Round III

Behind the main Championship contenders, a number of other drivers impressed in the third round of the 2026 Season. Sara Matsui was one of them as her seventh and fifth place finishes from the weekend gave her her strongest performance so far this year. Mastsui also had her best qualifying performance of the year, finishing in sixth place at the end of that session.

After narrowly missing out on points in Saturday’s Sprint Race by a single position, Paige Raddatz replicated her best finishing position of the year so far on Sunday when she crossed the finish line in sixth place. Having started down in eleventh place for the first race and then in ninth place for the second race, her progress up the order echoes that of Ciconte’s and as can be seen from her results so far this year, she’s definitely not a bad driver to emulate.

Kokoro Sato and Rami Sasaki were the only other two drivers to score points in both races in the third round of the Championship. Their consistency puts both drivers firmly inside the top ten overall - even if Sato’s sixth and seventh place finishes were her worst of the year so far and this round being the first where she didn’t visit the podium.

The Wrong Kind of Consistency

For those occupying the final six places at the bottom of the Championship Standings, the 2026 season continues to be a character building one. None of the drivers in these positions scored points across this last race weekend either, with each driver struggling in at least one of the two races. There was some hope for drivers like Marie Iwaoka who finished in P19 on Saturday before just missing out on points on Sunday with a P12 finish.

Elsewhere, while she didn’t score points, Sitarvee can be proud too of her best qualifying result of the year so far, starting Saturday’s race from tenth place on the grid.

Each driver will be hoping that their experiences from these three rounds will serve as a solid foundation for them to use as a springboard into the points for at least one of the remaining four races scheduled for this season.

The biggest shock however came from Miki Onaga. Like Ciconte, Onaga had been incredibly consistent this season, never finishing below fourth place and finishing on the podium last time out too. She qualified in fourth place but ultimately ended up outside of the points for both races. In the Sprint, she finished in P12, while in the Final Race, she was classified in P19 after DNFing.

An Opportunity to Learn

The wet conditions on Sunday may have been particularly vexing for all of the drivers but the opportunity to go racing in such conditions is never guaranteed. The higher echelons of single seater motorsport such as Formula 2 and Formula 3, as well as the pinnacle of motorsport itself, Formula 1, have been hesitant to race in wet conditions in recent years. This then makes it difficult for drivers to gain experience and master these mixed and wet conditions. But in the Kyojo Cup, that doesn’t seem to be the case and this will only serve to benefit these up and coming drivers, regardless of which categories of racing they end up competing in in the future.

The spray was monumental at times from what could be seen from the trackside cameras and indeed the onboard cameras for each driver too. While some drivers did struggle in these conditions and some DNFd as a result, the alternative of not racing at all does nothing to serve the betterment of these drivers - the overall aim of the Kyojo Cup. Rain is also known as the great equalizer in motorsport and has given drivers and fans some of the best races in history of the years and decades. From Tomishita’s bounce back to Ciconte’s consistency no matter the weather and the improvement from driver’s like Raddatz while catching out others such as Onaga, it helps to make the 2026 campaign that bit more fascinating and exciting to watch.

Final Thought

With a maximum of sixty-six points available for any one driver in the final two rounds of the season, it is still mathematically almost anyone’s game in the Kyojo Cup. But with a natural hierarchy having appeared to have established itself, that field will narrow again next time out ahead of the finale. Mistakes from here on out will prove costly and one good or bad weekend could turn the entire Championship on its head. With so many drivers still in play, the Kyojo Cup is set to have one of the most intriguing finales of the year.

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When it comes to women in motorsport, Abbi Pulling has become one of the most well known across the entire racing world. From karting to W Series to F1 Academy and GB3, the British racing driver has been both one of the sport’s most dominant forces and biggest underdogs as she does all she can to forge a lasting career in motorsport.

Pulling began karting in 2013 before making the switch over to Ginetta Juniors in 2018 and then into single seaters in 2020 when she entered the British F4 Championship. What has followed has been a remarkable story of a driver who won’t let her background or financial struggles prevent her from going racing and continuously proving that she’s got what it takes to make it all the way to the top of the motorsport ladder.

She famously came onto many people’s radars in the final round of the 2021 Season of W Series where she claimed Pole Position which she followed up in the next race with a podium finish, coming across the line in second place with only the illustrious Jamie Chadwick ahead of her.

Pulling joined F1 Academy in 2023 and collected seven podiums in her maiden season. Supported by the Alpine F1 Team in 2024, Pulling then went on to dominate the series, winning nine of the thirteen races that season and having a lowest finishing position of third.

In 2025, Pulling entered the GB3 Championship, finishing in tenth place overall, finishing all but four races inside the top ten and with a debut podium to her name when she finished in third place in Brands Hatch. She returned to the series this year and currently sits in eighth place overall with two rounds left. She’s added a further three podiums to her tally this year too, including a maiden win in Spa.

All of this would be more than enough to keep Pulling busy, especially with training, sourcing sponsorship and everything else that comes with building a long-term presence in motorsport.

But, naturally, this is not all that is on Abbi Pulling’s docket in 2026. Alongside her racing duties, Abbi was signed by the Nissan Formula E Team for the 2024/2025 season which has continued into the 2025/2026 season and again looks set to continue into the Gen 4 Era of the electric racing series too. Her role with the team is that of a rookie and simulator driver and consequently, has resulted in Pulling taking part in the all women’s Formula E tests as well as the rookie Formula E test that took place in Miami earlier this year. But her role goes beyond the track too as she beds herself in with the Japanese team and the automotive brand itself.

It’s Race Week! sat down with Abbi at the Formula E Season 12 Finale in London in August to discuss her work with the team, all that it entails and why the pairing are such a good fit for one another.

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What is your role for the weekend and what does that entail?

I am the Rookie and Simulator Driver and to be honest, my weekend’s fairly relaxed. I was here yesterday doing some stuff with Nissan UK, they’ve obviously got their new Nissan Leaf out, and it’s literally just hit the showroom, so doing some work with them and that was a bit different, but of course, I’m here with the Formula E team.

I’m not actually able to go into the debrief room, because there’s a limit on numbers, so I’ve been watching the sessions, supporting from afar, and talking to people like you and doing different activities, like engaging with the fans. I was over yesterday at the fan grandstand, the Nissan grandstand, so shooting some shirts into the sea of people was quite fun! And then, of course, Nissan have their Nissan Suite. So I was over there talking to the guests and helping them enjoy their experience of the E-Prix a little bit more.

You were in the safety car yesterday too, I heard.

Actually, yeah, that’s a really good point. I mean, it’s not a Nissan, but I did some promotion yesterday with one of Formula E’s partners, and I got to drive the safety car around the track for like six, seven laps…I had to back off because the tyres got too hot! So the last few laps I went steady.

It was so funny because the track is like the width of the car, so it’s like you’re threading the needle the whole way. But this track is always so fun to come to. It’s a cool event. It’s an event like no other, obviously, because it’s in the Excel. And catching up with the team, of course, I’m normally the SIM driver and doing the Ops room, but of course, this is my home race, so it made sense to come here.

But yeah, normally in Paris on the simulator, I’m helping them and giving support from Paris to the guys and girls track side.

You’ve been in this role with this team for a couple of years, what’s it been like?

I mean it feels like forever. I mean it feels like I’ve been with them forever because they’re so lovely and everyone’s always so smiley with me and it’s so nice to chat to them and have a laugh. But also the team as well, they’re so focused and committed on what they do and there’s no better place for me to learn, I don’t think.

So what’s it been like being part of that, you say with the sim work and obviously the women’s test and helping develop these cars in particular, what’s that been like for, not just to help the team but for your own racecraft?

Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, in a selfish way, it’s been incredible for my development because going to the simulator and doing all the procedures and so on and so forth, you know, it’s a lot to take in with these cars. And when I first jumped into it, I did one day on the simulator and then jumped straight into the car and it was a lot to process. That was obviously in 2024 in the first women’s test. And now after working with the team for, like I say, about two years, this whole year, doing race ops, bar one or two events that clash, it’s, I feel like I can jump in the car and feel at home and nothing’s overwhelming and I know what everything is.

All the procedures and so on are pretty normal for me now and I can, like I say, focus on the driving and focus on other things. I think you have to have such a big capacity in this car and I quite enjoy that and quite enjoy that challenge. But yeah, I’ve learned so much and all the different things that this car can do, it’s unlimited, you know, what this car can do.

Have you noticed from the experience you’ve had in the sim here and the test sessions as well, obviously different cars to what you would be driving in normally, but have you noticed that you get advantages from the knowledge and the experience when you’ve then gone and you’re racing in your own series?

I really wish in GB3, yeah, I really wish in GB3 I had GPS where my break bias and migration and so on would change however I wanted, but I don’t have that unfortunately. It’s a bit more raw in that sense that your biggest tool is yourself, basically. But regardless of that, the thing that correlates the most, I think, is more the capacity and it’s like a skill and the skill of increasing your capacity in the car. When I’m in the Formula E car, then you go back to what I race where, like I say, the biggest tool is yourself and everything becomes easier. I don’t know how to explain it, that’s the most simplest way I can explain it. I suppose more track time, more seat time, regardless, it just helps make it a bit more round and over. There’s so much that I can learn and take forward. The car itself is obviously very different, but the environment and so on I can take things from it.

I was going to ask, because obviously Alice is in Envision, what’s that like?

You can’t compare notes?

Well, you can’t compare notes because I’d get sacked! But I’m very fortunate that she’s kind of what got me into Formula E and got me watching it because she was obviously doing development work with Envision well before I was involved with Nissan, so I would follow Formula E and I was actually really interested in watching the races on the TV, I would ask questions and so on, and I got to understand it a little bit better before I even entered the world of Formula E. And then when obviously I did the women’s test and did get involved with Nissan, I could pick her brain a little bit and in a sense share notes, but not with sensitive stuff, more in the driving style and so on. And yeah, I’m super fortunate to have that and now be so ingrained with a Formula E team and have such a great relationship with Nissan.

And when you’re at those tests with the other women over there, obviously I’m guessing sometimes it’s the only time you’ll see them over the course of a year. Do you have any particularly strong ties with any of the women in part of that test, or is it all just very much competitive, even though it’s a testing session?

Yeah, I think for me, of course I want to be fastest, I’m a racing driver, so you do look at the timesheets and so on, but at the end of the day I’m always there for Nissan and for what they need to test. They normally have a few test items, I’m very fortunate that they also do things specifically for me. So we did a few races, a lot of, you can either just constantly do performance runs and qualifying runs, which is what puts you at the top of the times and so on.

But we actually did quite a lot with the, I don’t want to call it race mode, I don’t know what to call it, in the race scenario. Yeah, the 100km race scenario. I would just say race scenario. So the race scenario is such a different way to drive, and I’m very fortunate that we don’t just focus on being fast on the timesheets, we’re focussing on how I can be better as a driver and well-rounded.

They’ve put me to do quite a lot of race laps to better my technique, because it’s so one-for-one, there’s nowhere else that you drive like it really. So it was fun to get my head around that at Valencia and get more competitive in 300kW in the race scenario, and be more efficient.

The most important thing in this game, in Formula E, is to be fast and efficient. You can be fast, but being efficient as well helps so much. And the team know that, and they see that, and yeah, it’s fun to be a part of, and so on and so forth.

Your biggest standout moment from this season with Nissan?

I think going to Miami. Although I was competitive at the start, and then I obviously had a bit of a moment at the end and didn’t get a full quali run for a 350 lap. It was so great to be in the car on a race weekend for FP0. We struggled a bit that weekend, and there was a few things that me and Gabriele, who was at the test as well at the FP0, we picked up on and said to the team, hey, we were struggling with this, just be wary of this, try and get ahead of the curve of it.

It was nice that we could have that input, but not only that, that we were trusted as well in what we were saying.

But the thing that caught us off guard, was the track surface. I wouldn’t say what it would do and so on and so forth. It was mainly just down to how it reacted with the tyres and so on and the temperatures, it becomes different and it was fun for us to be like, oh yeah, we need to do a few more things to get it more in the window going forward.

And then I guess when those changes get implemented and you see it works in the right way, that gives you a bit of a confidence boost?

Yeah, I mean that weekend ended up being weird because it was wet in the end and so on. A bit less comparable than yesterday. The weekend could have gone a completely different way for the team, so it was nice to be able to try and help them get a step ahead.

Of course, all the other teams had experienced rookies in as well and they were probably saying similar stuff that we were, but yeah, that was a standout moment. But then again, also a standout moment for me was jumping in at Jarama for the rookie test, because for me that was a really successful day in the car. You know, being in both sessions in the top ten against, you know, people that have won F2. I think that’s like, for me, that meant a lot for myself.

It’s a series that in theory there is, like at one point, there’s nothing in theory stopping a woman from being in there full time.

Exactly. Like, Jarama was... I was so, yeah, really, really happy with the performance there. And the main thing really that I was struggling with for more performance and speed in myself was a little bit of strength. You know, unfortunately, the cars, it’s no secret, they are quite physical. So that last little bit to, I think it was Victor then, who was my teammate, was just trusting myself and my strength a little bit.

And, you know, when you get a snap in a car that’s heavy in the steering, it’s quite, in the high speed stuff, it’s... You’ve got to trust yourself that you can catch it, and when you’re physically struggling, it can be hard. So that was like, knowing the performance was there, and I was just as fast in most of the corners other than the ones that I was like hanging on for dear life! You know, it was all there. We could see it, the team could see it, I could see it, and that was so, so positive for myself. It was one of my more competitive sessions for the team, so I was very happy with that.

Obviously, we’ve seen some women compete in Formula E in the past. We’ve got, obviously, the all-women tests, and we’ve had some in the rookies. When do you think we’re going to get a full-time female driver? Because obviously there’s still a few seats, in theory, available for next year.

Unfortunately, no female has an e-licence, so it’s a super-licence thing there. So it feels like there’s nothing, again, in theory, to prevent it now, you know, you’ve got the talent there, you’re getting the opportunity, you’re showing what you’re capable of. It’s just that super-licence thing. I think within all the world championships, I think there’s five, five world championships, the first world championship that will have a female full-time driver will be Formula E. I’ve got no doubt about that, because they’re giving opportunities. It’s not just the championship, but all the teams across the grid have to also agree to putting females in the car for these tests. Even just, in general, agreeing to do an all-female test is such a big thing for them.

You can just see it’s so important for everyone in the paddock, and it’s going to happen eventually. Like anything, it’s going to take time. I think the big sticking point is, you know, I’m trying to get enough super-licence points to qualify for an E-licence. That’s the big thing for myself. If my season went a bit better this year, I would have managed to have done it, but unfortunately I’ve had a bad year. For me, that’s my goal. The next step for me is trying to compete in whatever series will give me the opportunity to get an E-licence. Because I see myself continuing up the electric pathway.

Formula E is the most welcoming paddock, and it’s the paddock that I feel wants me in it the most, in that sense. You go to F1 and everyone’s out for themselves. Whether it’s... In any sense, it’s quite...

Piranha Club.

Piranha Club. It’s very Piranha Club, and it’s completely opposite here. Although there’s rivalries… Everyone’s willing to help out a little bit more and be welcoming. Everyone helps each other out a bit more in this sense. Even if one of the garages next door ran out of water or something. Simple stuff like that, we would help them out and stuff.

It’s very sociable. We make similar things a lot. We discuss a lot. We communicate, like, oh, do you have a spare of these? Can you help me out with that? We share the same catering, which already... It means that you mix with people more than, my garage, my motorhome, and I don’t look on the side kind of thing. It’s very collaborative. It’s in everyone’s best interest to help this paddock to excel. It’s so early doors for Formula E. They’re only in their 12th season.

But you look at the progress that’s been made already.

Exactly. And the progress in 12 years from Gen 1 to Gen 4. It’s insane.

You don’t have to pit cars to swap them mid race anymore!

Exactly. That alone was a massive innovation. Of course, still more to do, still more to go. But they do keep doing it. They do keep investing. And it’s great to see. And I’m excited to see where it continues to go. And hopefully I am a part of that. I’m very, very fortunate. My relationship with Nissan. They love me and I love them.

Very nice liveries on the car as well.

Yeah. The blossoms are in the Japanese style and my Nissan helmet is one of my favourites. The cherry blossoms helmet. Can’t get enough of that!

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Abbi Pulling can next be seen racing in the final two rounds of the 2026 GB3 Season held in Brands Hatch from September 25th-27th and at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya from November 5th-8th.

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When it comes to single seater racing, it’s not often that we see women competing in the top categories. It’s something that Formula 1 has struggled with for decades. In IndyCar however, while the series is currently in a drought on the female driver front, there is a longer and more promising history that shows that it is possible for women to not only enter into the series but to remain there for multiple seasons as a number have done ranging all the way from the 1970s to 2026.

Let’s take a look then at the women so far in history who have competed in IndyCar.

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Janet Guthrie

Before any women competed part-time or even full time in IndyCar, one woman took aim at one of the biggest races in all of motorsport and took her shot.

Janet Guthrie raced in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in the late 1970s and while doing this, decided to take on the Indy 500. As you do. The Iowa born racer first attempted to compete in the 1976 Indy 500. However on this occasion she failed to qualify and was forced to wait a year before her next attempt in 1977. Competing for Rolla Vollstedt, Janet qualified in twenty-sixth and slid down to twenty-ninth by the end of the race due to engine issues. That didn’t matter too much though as history had been made. Janet Guthrie had become the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500.

1978 would be her best showing at the Indy 500 though. Driving in a Wildcat chassis with a DGS engine, Janet qualified in fifteenth place before going to finish in an incredible ninth place. She finished ahead of drivers such as Mario Andretti and Rick Mears. Guthrie later confessed to having also raced with a fractured wrist, having injured herself in a tennis match just days before the race.

Guthrie returned in 1979 and qualified in fourteenth in her Lola chassis. But she would finish in thirty-fourth and this would essentially be the end of her Indy 500 career. While she came back one last time in 1980, she finished her time in IndyCar as she started it by failing to qualify for the race.

Lyn St. James

The Ohio born driver made her debut IndyCar appearance for Dick Simon Racing at the 1992 Indianapolis 500. It was her sole outing that year but she made it a memorable one as she competed in one of the greatest racing spectacles on Earth and finished in a very respectable P11.

She returned for seven races in 1993 with a highest finish of P13 in Phoenix. In 1994 Lyn competed only in the Indy 500, already her third time in the fabled race, where she finished in nineteenth. She competed in the race again in 1995 as well as in the races held in Milwaukee and Michigan, finishing in a highest position of seventeenth in the latter.

In 1996, Lyn St. James competed in a further three races with three different teams, finishing a career best of eighth at the season opener held at Walt Disney World driving for Simon/Scandia Racing. From 1997 until the end of 2000, Lyn then competed in just the Indy 500 for a range of teams, including her own, Lyn St. James Racing in 1998.

Sarah Fisher

Sarah Fisher made her IndyCar debut in the 1999 season finale held at the Texas Motor Speedway. She finished in twenty-fifth on that occasion and earned herself five points as a result. Fisher returned for all but the opening race in 2000, driving for Walker Racing. After a series of results on the edge of the top ten, Fisher broke through in style at the penultimate race of the year held in Kentucky. Everything came together for the American driver and she finished in third place - her first of two podiums in IndyCar. Top two in the Championship Buddy Lazier and Scott Goodyear joined her on the podium in first and second respectively and she finished ahead of known drivers such as Eddie Cheever and Jeff Ward.

Fisher continued with Walker Racing in 2001, achieving her second and final IndyCar podium with them at just the second round of the year in Homestead, Miami. One other top ten finish came her way that season at Pikes Peak International Raceway and she finished the season in nineteenth place overall.

In 2002, Fisher moved to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for whom she raced for part of the season, achieving a best result that year of fourth place in Nazareth. She drove for the outfit full time in 2003 but was only able to break into the top ten on one occasion at Phoenix Raceway.

Sarah Fisher’s career in IndyCar became tougher after this as she was only able to compete in the Indy 500 in 2004, finishing in twenty-first, before not competing at all in the series in 2005. But Fisher was back in 2006, this time again with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. After two races with them towards the end of the season, she raced for the team full time in 2007 with back-to-back top ten finishes in Texas and Iowa. It would also be the year she achieved her highest overall finishing result to date of seventeenth by season’s end.

From 2008 until the end of 2010, Sarah competed in a total of sixteen IndyCar races, under her own banner of Sarah Fisher Racing. From these sixteen races, her best result came in 2009 in Kentucky where she finished in twelfth place. Fisher’s final race was at the 2010 season finale in Homestead, Miami where she finished in twenty-second.

Danica Patrick

The most successful female IndyCar driver to date, Danica Patrick came onto the scene in 2005 for Rahal Letterman Racing. Finishing near the top ten on her first three outings, Patrick then achieved back-to-back fourth place finishes in Motegi, Japan and Indianapolis. A further five top ten finishes came her way that year and Danica ended the season in P12 overall in the Championship. She finished four points ahead of now six-time IndyCar Champion Scott Dixon. It would be her worst full season final position.

Driving once again for Rahal Letterman Racing in 2006, Danica finished in ninth place overall with seven top ten finishes and equalling her best result so far of fourth place which she did in Nashville and Milwaukee.

From 2007 until the end of 2011, Danica switched over to Andretti and in her first year with the team, she was able to get onto the podium three times - the first of which was in Texas. Her next podium was another third place, this time in Nashville. IndyCar legends Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon joined her on the podium this time around. Patrick then went one better by finishing in second place in Detroit with only Tony Kanaan ahead of her.

Danica’s success wouldn’t end there though. After finishing in seventh overall in 2007, she propelled herself into sixth place by the end of the 2008 season. Her journey there was aided by a fantastic win when IndyCar went racing once again in Japan around the circuit in Motegi. Despite this breakthrough win, it would be Danica’s only podium of the year. Seven top ten finishes followed but the closest she came to another podium was a pair of fifth place finishes in Nashville and Sonoma.

In 2009, Danica found herself back in the podium places again - this time at the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 when she finished in third. Nine other top ten results came together at the end of the season to put Danica in her best ever overall Championship position of fifth.

2010 saw Danica stand on the IndyCar podium for two final occasions. Both were second place finishes which came in Texas and at the season finale in Miami. She finished in tenth place overall and it would be a finishing result she’d repeat again for her final full season in IndyCar in 2011, with a best result instead of fifth in Milwaukee.

It wasn’t until 2018 that Danica made her next and final IndyCar appearance. Competing for Ed Carpenter Racing, she contested in that year’s Indy 500, finishing in thirty-second.

Simona de Silvestro

The Italian-Swiss racing driver made her IndyCar debut in 2010 with HVM Racing. In that first year and her second year in the series in 2011, she drove for the American outfit, achieving a best result of fourth place at the season opener in 2011 in St. Petersburg. Four other top ten finishes came her way during this two year period before she drove for Lotus HVM Racing in 2012. It was a tough third season for Simona that year with a best result of fourteenth in Detroit.

In 2013, Simona switched teams to race for KV Racing Technology and it was with them that she had her best season in IndyCar. Nine top ten finishes were on the cards that year with five of those in the last five races of the season. Moreover, one of these was Simona’s first and only podium in IndyCar - a second place finish in Houston. Justin Wilson finished behind her in third while Scott Dixon won the race. Simona finished in a career best of thirteenth overall that year.

But 2013 would also prove to be her final full season in the sport. In 2014, she didn’t compete in IndyCar at all, only to return in 2015 for three races which included a fourth place finish in Louisiana.

It would be a further six years before her next appearance in the 2021 Indy 500 where she finished in thirty-first. Simona came back one final time to IndyCar in 2022 for four races in Road America, Mid-Ohio, Nashville and the season finale in Laguna Seca.

Milka Duno

The Venezuelan driver competed across four seasons of IndyCar from 2007 until the end of 2010. She debuted with a fourteenth place finish in Kansas driving for SAMAX Motorsport. Duno raced in a further six races that year with a best finish of eleventh in Texas.

Across 2008 and 2009, Milka continued to compete in IndyCar part-time, racing for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. While under their roof, Duno’s best result was a fourteenth place finish at the penultimate round of the 08’ season held at Chicagoland.

She moved to Dayle Coyne Racing in 2010 but again, was unable to break into the top ten for her first and final full season of IndyCar. Instead, she got as high as nineteenth in three races held in Chicagoland, Kentucky and Motegi before leaving the sport at the end of the year.

Ana Beatriz

Ana Beatriz made her way into IndyCar via the feeder series Indy Lights. She then made her IndyCar debut in 2010 with Dreyer & Reinbold on home soil at the season opener in Brazil where she finished in thirteenth place. She competed in a further three races that year, including in the Indy 500 before an almost full season with the team in 2011.

In 2011, she rose as high as eleventh place which she managed on the streets of Toronto and racked up 212 points to finish in twenty-first overall by the end of the year.

In 2012 and 2013, Beatriz competed for Andretti Autosport and Dayle Coyne Racing in two races for the former and seven for the latter. Her best result during this period was a fourteenth place finish at Long Beach in 2013 and her final race that year in Iowa would prove to be her last in the series.

Pippa Mann

Like Ana, Pippa came up into IndyCar after a stint in Indy Lights. However, Mann’s career in IndyCar, while longer in duration, would be sparser than the Brazilians. She competed in eighteen races from 2011 until the end of 2019, eight of which were the Indy 500 - where she got a best result of sixteenth in her final IndyCar appearance in 2019. The majority of her races were with Dayle Coyne Racing but Mann was never able to do more than six races across an entire season (this occurring in 2015) and as a result, it kept hindering her progress within the sport. Mann’s best results did come during that six race stretch in 2015 with two P13 finishes in Fontana and Pocono.

Katherine Legge

The British driver made her IndyCar debut in 2012 with Lotus Dragon Racing for a five race stint at the start of the season. Her best result came at Long Beach where she finished in nineteenth place and Legge competed in a further five races that year. That included her best IndyCar result to date which was ninth place in Fontana.

Like a number of the other drivers mentioned previously, Legge struggled to get a full season in IndyCar and instead had to settle for races when she was able to get them. In 2013 she raced in the Indy 500 but it would be ten years before she got the chance to race again in IndyCar, again at the 500.

In 2024, she competed for Dayle Coyne Racing in seven races across the year with a best finish of fifteenth at the penultimate race of the season in Milwaukee. It then wouldn’t be until this year that Legge got the chance to race in IndyCar again - once more in the Indy 500 as she also became the first woman to attempt to do the double, competing in both the Indy 500 and NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600 on the same day. However, she was caught up in a nasty crash with Ryan Hunter Reay early in the race and was forced to retire. To date, Legge is the most recent female driver to compete in IndyCar. There is no word yet on if Legge will return again in 2027.

Tatiana Calderon

The Colombian driver drove for seven races in the 2022 Season of IndyCar with A.J Foyt Enterprises. Her best results came at Long Beach and at the Indianapolis Road Course where she finished in sixteenth and fifteenth respectively. Calderon’s last appearance came at Mid-Ohio and the following year, she switched disciplines to race in the European Le Mans Series with Team Virage.

She’s continued to race and be involved in a range of categories since then, including Formula E and most recently, the GT Challenge de las Américas. In the latter, she took the overall win in her debut weekend back in July where she shared driving duties with Juan Diego Hernández as the pair drove for Nacent Racing.

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While Katherine Legge is the last female driver to appear in IndyCar, it’s been thirteen years since Simona de Silvestro was the last full time female driver in the series. With no women competing in Indy NXT in 2026, that looks unlikely to change in 2027. Hopefully there’ll be steps in the right direction to change that narrative by the time the 2028 IndyCar Season comes around.

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Let’s take a look at Chadwick and the other women who have competed so far in Indy NXT.

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Jamie Chadwick

A driver with a wealth of experience across categories such as W Series (where she was a three-time Champion), the British GT Championship and Extreme E, it’s no surprise that Jamie Chadwick ended up stateside in Indy NXT. 2023 was her debut season where she drove for Andretti Autosport. It took her some time to get to grips with both the new car and all of the brand new circuits (comparatively similar to what Colton Herta is currently experiencing in Formula 2) but she went on to score her first top ten result in the series at the seventh round of the season in Mid-Ohio. A P10 result there was followed by three more point scoring results immediately thereafter. Chadwick then struggled for the remaining four rounds of the season but did return to the top ten with a season best result of P6 in Portland. She’d finish her first year in the series in P12 overall with 262 points to her name.

2024 would then be Chadwick’s breakout year in Indy NXT. After a troublesome opening two rounds of the season, the British driver bounced back in style as the series went racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the first of two races held there, Chadwick put all of her experience in the series so far to good use and came away with her first podium after finishing in third place. Jacob Abel and Nolan Siegel were ahead of her on the podium. For those who aren’t familiar, Abel went on to compete in IndyCar in 2025 as did Nolan Siegel who remains there to this day as he drives for Arrow McLaren until the end of the 2026 season.

Three rounds later at Road America, Chadwick went even further and won the race in dominant fashion. Fellow Brit, Louis Foster (also now an IndyCar driver) and Jacob Abel joined her on the podium. While the podium eluded her for the rest of the season, Jamie was in the top ten in five of the remaining eight races with a best finish amongst those of P5 in Milwaukee. Chadwick ended her second season with Andretti in P7 overall with 310 points, less than thirty points away from the top four.

Jamie didn’t return for a third season in Indy NXT as she instead returned to Europe where she has since forged a career in the European Le Mans Series and the World Endurance Championship.

Lindsay Brewer

There was another woman besides Chadwick on the Indy NXT grid in 2024 - Lindsay Brewer. The American contested in eight of the fourteen rounds that season as she drove for Juncos Hollinger Racing. P15 would be Brewer’s best result from her limited time there which she achieved in both her first and final race in St. Petersburg and Laguna Seca respectively. She accrued 102 points from these races which was good enough for twenty-first overall out of the twenty-seven drivers that competed in 2024.

Brewer previously raced in the USF Pro 2000 Championship and is now competing alongside Célia Martin in the GT3 revival series with Klausen Racing.

Taylor Ferns

There was a third and final woman competing in Indy NXT in 2024 - Taylor Ferns. She competed for four of the final five rounds of the season across Iowa, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Nashville. Her highest finish was P15 around the oval at St. Louis and she racked up 53 points from her four events where she drove for Abel Motorsports.

Ferns initially began her time on racing competing in Midgets and Stock Cars. She competed in the ARCA Menards Series from 2012 to 2013 but the high costs meant that she had to return to grassroots racing. Before her time in Indy NXT, Ferns stepped away from racing and studied for a bachelor's degree in Finance and Economics, an MBA, and a Juris Doctor.

Hailie Deegan

Hailie Deegan would be the next and most recent full-time driver in the Indy NXT series. Coming from the world of NASCAR, the switch to single seaters came off the back of a two race stint in the Formula Regional Americas Championship where she competed in the final two races of the year at the Circuit of the Americas. She finished in P10 in the final race and earned a solitary point for her effort.

In 2025, she drove for HMD Motorsports for the full Indy NXT season as her transition into this new style of racing continued. She was consistent for the duration of the year but failed to crack into the top ten. Instead, her best results and best weekend came together at Laguna Seca. There she finished in P12 and P11 respectively, keeping clear of much of the carnage and chaos occurring out on track. Deegan’s efforts were good enough for P14 at the end of the season with 202 points to her name.

In 2026, Deegan returned to the ARCA Menards Series, a NASCAR sanctioned stock racing series, where she finished in P11 at her latest outing in Phoenix.*

Sophia Flörsch

Sophia Flörsch was also on the Indy NXT grid, albeit briefly, in 2025. Running for HMD Motorsports, Flörsch made her debut as the season opener in St. Petersburg. Starting the race towards the rear of the field, Flörsch was able to make her way up to an impressive P12 by the end of the race, ahead of more experienced full time drivers such as Sebastian Murray, Bryce Aron and Niels Koolen. However, due to financial constraints, Flörsch was unable to compete beyond that first outing. It was a real what if moment for the German driver as the potential was clearly there as evidenced by that opening race.

Flörsch has now returned to the world of single seater racing as she had been signed by Opel as their test and development driver for their brand new Formula E team.

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Five women have competed in Indy NXT since 2023 with two of those racing in the series full time. With more female talent in the pipeline, both in America and in the rest of the world, it’s surely only a matter of time before more compete in Indy NXT once again. Let’s hope that 2026 is the only blip on the Indy NXT record and that more female talent get the chance they deserve in 2027.

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In motorsport, data is everywhere. Engineers can track tyre temperatures, throttle application, and braking zones down to the millisecond. But a screen full of squiggly lines only tells half the story. The real tension on the pit wall comes down to a constant choice: when do you trust the cold telemetry, and when do you lean entirely on human intuition?

For Eimear O’Connor, Race Engineer at PREMA Racing, striking that balance is the job. Speaking with us behind the garage during the last Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, she unpacks her distinct philosophy.

Now in her third year as a Race Engineer in F1 ACADEMY, she approaches the paddock with a clear mindset: a driver is more than someone executing a pre-planned strategy. “They are part of the car, and ultimately they are the best sensor you probably will have in the car,” she shares. Extracting peak performance takes more than a flawless setup. It requires absolute trust, knowing how to read a driver, and putting in the invisible work long before the cars ever reach the glamour of the starting grid.

Life As A Race Engineer In F1 ACADEMY

The race weekend starts back at the workshop with a post-mortem of the previous race, auditing mechanical health, analysing setup choices, and running drivers through simulator sessions. Even when teams are not returning to the same track, some data carries over.

“We normally get the drivers to come to the simulator, so we would prepare some setups for them to run,” Eimear explains. “It’s mainly just track learning, but we might test some setup items as well, depending on whether there’s something that we could consider doing.”

By the time the team arrives at the paddock, time is the enemy. Since teams do not have their cars in the workshop to prepare setups, they operate entirely out of freight boxes. With only one Free Practice (FP) session each race weekend, there is a narrow window to install everything on the first day “Beyond setting up the car, it’s just getting into the race weekend and trying to win,” she notes.

Having only one FP also means teams must find ways to maximise limited track time. This turns the track walk into a strategic tool rather than a simple bonding exercise. In Zandvoort, Eimear combines physical track conditions with F1 ACADEMY historical data from the past three years to give her drivers a head start, especially important in a track where the weather is unpredictable.

“We have the video from the onboard of the wet from 2024,” she notes, pointing out where puddles typically form. “Because they only have a limited time in FP, getting them into the right headspace to try and get the maximum out of the car immediately from the off is really important.”

This intense, hands-on environment demands engineers who can manage every aspect of the machine and the driver. It is exactly why Eimear is in no rush to climb the ladder to Formula 1 (F1).

While she acknowledges F1 as the ceiling of motorsport and would take the opportunity when it presents itself, she prefers the autonomy of junior categories, or even other series such as Formula E, IndyCar, or the World Endurance Championship.

“Because the teams in F1 are so big, you get very streamlined very quickly,” she says, reflecting on her career trajectory. “Keeping my options open and progressing technically is really important. Moving up the ladder to regional F3, F2 is ultimately the goal for me, and then if at some point in that career F1 comes knocking, I would probably go for it.”

Translating Trust into Lap Times

As a Race Engineer with three seasons of F1 ACADEMY under her belt, Eimear knows what a winning partnership looks like. Her first two seasons paired her with formidable talent: Maya Weug, the 2025 Vice Champion, and Nina Gademan, who recently secured a memorable double podium at her home race in Zandvoort.

Working with Maya set an immediate benchmark. Eimear remembers her as one of the most committed drivers she has ever partnered with. That relentless drive created a foundation that forced Eimear to raise her own game to match the intensity.

“Honestly, I think I got a bit spoiled with her being my first driver,” she shares. “It set a very good foundation and a benchmark for the standard you have to work to. When you have a driver that committed, you need to step up as an engineer too.”

Their shared motivation proved invaluable, but it also reinforced a hard truth about motorsport: human intuition requires adaptability. Not all drivers operate in the same way. Some want their data to arrive to them in a certain manner, while others have their own communication style.

Managing a rookie, though, presents a different challenge. Teaming up with Mathilda Paatz in the #8 Aston Martin car, the partnership has already delivered results in Montreal with the German racer bringing home her first podium in the Opening Race, followed by her maiden win in the Reverse Grid Race later on the same day.

“It’s been quite good working with Mathilda,” she says. “I think the main thing when it’s your rookie year is to take it step by step, get the fundamentals right, and try to adapt as much as you can.”

This measured approach serves as a vital shield against the unique environment of F1 ACADEMY. With direct ties to F1 teams and tremendous media visibility, external pressure can easily overwhelm drivers the moment they enter the paddock.

By framing year one purely around foundational growth, Eimear helps her driver filter out the noise, building the resilience needed to truly deliver when year two arrives. She adds: “Coming into a team like PREMA Racing, we have a lot of good references, especially historically from the past three years for us. It’s a good place to be learning.”

Different Times For The House of Champions

Since the start of F1 ACADEMY, PREMA Racing has been the undisputed powerhouse. They claimed the Teams’ Championship for the first three seasons and housed drivers like Marta Garcia and Doriane Pin, who went on to become Drivers’ Champions.

But 2026 presents a new reality. Currently sitting fourth in the standings, the Italian outfit is navigating a different challenge: fielding an entirely rookie lineup. This shift has required a complete recalibration of what success looks like.

“We have performed in some events; we haven’t performed in others. That can happen,” she explains, pointing out the steep learning curve for rookies tackling new tracks.

Moving away from the expectation of guaranteed sweeps, the focus has shifted to laying solid foundations and managing morale. The pressure to perform in a team like PREMA Racing remains intense, but Eimear shields her drivers by tempering the immediate demand for wins.

“We’ve had to adapt our mentality a little bit for having drivers who are newer to the championship,” she notes. “I think we’re on the right track now to level out the points a bit and try to fight for a few more podiums.”

Fostering A Genuine Bond With Drivers

The mental side of race engineering is often invisible, and Eimear’s approach stems from an unexpected place: a decade of coaching in volleyball. That background, alongside mentorship courses, gave her the tools to read, relate, and empathise with people from different backgrounds.

That relationship continues outside of the boxes and paddock. While there is a level of professionalism race engineers have to maintain, the line is never set in stone as everyone spends so much time together racing from the start of the season.

What that looks like in practice for a race engineer is maintaining a set of personal standards and expectations. Empathy dictates Eimear’s rhythm, right down to post-session debriefs. “I always chat with the drivers at the start of the season and my rule is normally: After a session, I’m not coming to you. You come to me when you’re ready.”

Handing the driver control over when they process a rough qualifying run or when things do not go their way on track gives them freedom to internalise any emotions they may be feeling before heading into a debrief.

Eimear’s protective instinct over her drivers also extends to the systemic hurdles they face. Reflecting on Maya Weug’s struggle to find a full-time seat in single-seaters, Eimear points to a broader frustration.

The upside is that F1 ACADEMY graduates have gone on to achieve remarkable feats: 2025 Drivers’ Champion Doriane Pin became a Development Driver for the Mercedes F1 Team, 2024 Drivers’ Champion Abbi Pulling became the first woman to win a race in GB3, and 2023 Drivers’ Champion Marta Garcia received a fully funded seat to race in the 2024 Formula Regional European Championship.

Still, the traditional pipeline to F3 and F2 remains heavily restricted. “Seeing people progress to FRECA or to GB3, which is a more technically demanding, high-powered car, is a step in the right direction, but it’s the sustainability of keeping them there,” she adds.

“Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of support from external sponsors at the moment. I don’t know what we can do to change it honestly, but it does need to change. We need to see girls getting to F3 at a minimum.”

Finding The Final Tenth

Eimear has come a long way since her days with Imperiale Racing as a Data Engineer. Now in her third season as a Race Engineer in F1 ACADEMY, she knows her job is an exercise in duality.

Telemetry provides the undeniable facts: where a driver is losing time, how the tyres are degrading, or what setup changes are needed. It gives you the baseline to build a fast car.

But extracting that speed requires something a screen can never show — human intuition. And once the racing starts, control shifts to the cockpit. Eimear has to trust that the mental foundation she builds in her drivers is strong enough to handle chaos.

Montreal proved exactly why that matters. A radio failure severed her connection to Mathilda Paatz during a late Safety Car period, forcing the German rookie to navigate the restart purely on gut feel. It was only later that O’Connor managed to restore contact and relay the decisive update about Rafaela Ferreira’s penalty.

As Eimear puts it: “You need to understand your driver quite well to know what they want.”

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In 2008, the feeder series to IndyCar was re-branded as Indy Lights and with that rebrand came the first woman to race in this series - Ana Beatriz. While she was the first, she wouldn’t be the last woman to race in the series before its most recent rebrand in 2023. A number of women competed over the years in the Feeder Series, all with the hope of making it into IndyCar - one of which did.

Here then are the women who competed in Indy Lights.

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Ana Beatriz

Making her Indy Light debut in 2008 with Sam Schmidt Motorsports, Ana Beatriz hit the ground running in the series. A seventh-place finish at the season opener at Homestead in Miami was followed by a maiden podium at the first of two races held in St. Petersburg. These wouldn’t be her last as Beatriz would go on to finish on the podium a further five times that season. One of these was her inaugural win in the series as she crossed the line in first place in Nashville, coming off the back of another third-place finish at Watkins Glen.

Beatriz only finished five of the sixteen races that season outside of the top ten and ended her first year in Indy Lights in style with back-to-back podiums in Sonoma and at Chicagoland with a P3 and P2 finish, respectively. Her efforts were good enough for third place overall with 449 points to her name.

In 2009, she returned for her sophomore year, finishing in fourth place at the opening round in St. Petersburg. Beatriz’s second year would prove to be more difficult with fewer trips to the podium for the Brazilian. She had to wait until the seventh round of the season to claim her first podium of the year - but it would have been worth it as she won the race around the oval at Iowa. Her second and final podium that year came when she finished in third place at the Kentucky Speedway four races later. Beatriz finished the season in eighth overall in a year that saw future IndyCar drivers such as J.R Hilderbrand and James Hinchcliffe ahead of her in the standings.

While it may have been Beatriz’s final year in Indy Lights, it wasn’t the end of her IndyCar journey as she would make the step up to IndyCar itself in 2010 with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

Cyndie Allemann

Also competing in Indy Lights in 2008 was Cyndie Allemann. It was a tough season for the Swiss driver as she struggled to break in and remain within the top ten on a regular basis. St. Petersburg was an early location for success for Allemann as she was able to achieve back-to-back top ten finishes in both races held there.

But a string of lowly results over the next four rounds meant that she would have to wait until the eighth round of the season at Watkins Glen before getting back into the top ten. Finishing in ninth on that occasion, she’d endure a tough set of races before achieving her highest finishing position of the season four races later at Mid-Ohio.

Allemann came home fourth on that day just behind Richard Antinucci in third. It would be her last top ten appearance of the season and Allemann would finish the year in fourteenth overall. She would step away from single-seater racing after this and pivot instead to endurance racing.

Christina Orr-West

Making her Indy Lights debut alongside Beatriz and Allemann in 2008 was Christina Orr-West. She came in for the final four races of the season held in Kentucky, Sononoma and Chicagoland. Her best finish from these was P16 in Chicagoland.

These would be her only four appearances in Indy NXT. The New Zealander also raced in the Castrol Toyota Racing Series and the Bridgestone GR86 Championship, the latter occurring in 2024.

Pippa Mann

The British driver made her Indy Lights debut in 2009 where she raced for Panther Racing. Like Allemann, she would find her first foray into the series challenging as she only managed to get into the top ten on three occasions that year, in Milwaukee, Chicagoland and Homestead. She finished in P14 overall in what was a very competitive season for the series.

Mann switched to Sam Schmidt Motorsports in 2010 and went on to have a very strong second season in the series. Multiple top ten results came her way with the first being at round three at Long Beach. She’d also make two trips to the podium in 2010. The first of these came at Chicagoland where she finished in second place behind James Hinchliffe. Next time out at the Kentucky Speedway, Mann went one better and won her first race in Indy Lights. Hinchliffe and that year’s Champion, Jean-Karl Vernay joined her on the podium.

Pippa finished in fifth place overall by the end of the season, ahead of now Formula 3 Team Owner Adrian Campos Jr.

Carmen Jorda

Carmen Jorda joined Pippa Mann on the grid for the 2010 season of Indy Lights. The Spanish driver would only compete in five of the thirteen rounds that season though. Making her debut at the season opener in St. Petersburg, she finished in a solid P11. P17 came her way next time out in Alabama before her sole top ten result of the year, tenth place, achieved at the third round held at Long Beach.

Jorda missed the next three rounds before returning for back-to-back rounds in Toronto and Edmonton where she finished in P15 and P13 respectively. She ended the year in sixteenth overall and wouldn’t return to the series.

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Indy Lights was rebranded into Indy NXT in 2023 and with this rebranding came a host of new women into the sport. Keep your eyes peeled for the next article in this series talking about those here on It’s Race Week!

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IndyCar has a long and storied history and the path to it has had a great many variations to it over the years and decades. Indy Lights and Indy NXT are household series names now but before these came into being, there were a number of other series and precursors that individuals could enter as they attempted to get into one of the pinnacles of racing. In this first part of The Road to IndyCar, we take a look at the women who competed in these series from the 1970s onwards.

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Nancy James

Nancy James made her debut in the then precursor to the IndyCar series, the USAC Mini-Indy Series at the final race of the four round 1977 season. This was held at the Phoenix Raceway with Herm Johnson taking the win on that occasion. Nancy would finish in twenty-fourth place.

At the penultimate round of the 1978 season, Nancy James returned to the series for her second and final appearance. The race took place at the Trenton Speedway in New Jersey and James finished in twelfth place out of twenty-eight drivers competing and scored an appropriate twelve points for her efforts.

Desiré Wilson

Desiré Wilson was the next woman after Nancy James to make an appearance in IndyCar’s Feeder Series. This happened almost a decade later in the 1986 season of the American Racing Series - the successor to the USAC Mini-Indy Series. The South African driver competed at Phoenix Raceway where she after starting in tenth, she ran for much of the race in fifth place. But it wasn’t to be thanks to contact with the wall.

“It was my first ever oval with no prior testing of the car. With the help of Tom Bagley – I had a great qualy, and an interesting race doing well – around 5^th position, but then I “pinched” the car into the corner with a bit of understeer, - and oops, the rear broke loose and I went into the wall. Overall though I enjoyed the one off event!” - Desiré Wilson

Five years later, Wilson returned to the series, then called Indy Lights, where she competed for a sole round held in Denver. She finished in twelfth place and picked up a single Championship point as a result.

Cathy Muller

Between Wilson’s two appearances in the series, Cathy Muller came onto the scene. She first appeared in the 1989 Season of the American Racing Series. Competing for McNeill Motorsports, she finished in ninth place after starting in eleventh at the final event of the year held at Laguna Seca.

Muller came back for the 1990 Season of the American Racing Series. She competed once again for McNeill Racing but only for the first two of eight races that she competed in that year. For the remaining six, she switched teams to Stuart Moore Racing. Her best results were a P7 finish at the second round of the year in Long Beach and then back-to-back P5 finishes later in the year in Toronto and Denver. Muller finished in sixteenth place overall in the Championship out of thirty drivers that competed that season.

Cheryl Glass

Nazareth Raceway was the setting for the penultimate round of the 1990 American Racing Series and it was there that Cheryl Glass made her first start in the series, finishing in P7 having started in P9. Her final appearance in the series came a round later at the season finale at Laguna Seca where she qualified in P17 for Glass Racing. However, she didn’t make the race start. 12 points overall was what she managed to accumulate from her dual appearances in the series and Glass is also remembered as one of the first African American women female racing drivers in the United States of America.

Her story extends far past this and is worthy of further exploration so keep your eyes peeled here on It’s Race Week! for that in the future.

Mishael Abbott

It would be quite a while before the next woman made an appearance in an IndyCar Feeder Series. It wasn’t until 2005 in the Infinite Pro Series that it happened when Mishael Abbott took to the track. She competed for four races at Homestead, Phoenix, Indianapolis and the IMS Road course with a highest finish of P8 at Homestead in Miami - a venue where Formula E raced in 2025.

Abbott returned to the series again in 2006 for a further three races at Homestead, Indianapolis and Watkins Glen. She had a highest finish of P12 from those appearances which came at her final race in Watkins Glen.

Veronica McCann

2006 also saw one other woman competing in the Infinite Pro Series, albeit for a one off appearance. Veronica McCann competed at the final round of the year in Chicagoland where she finished in P11 driving for Brian Stewart Racing.

Sarah McCune

In 1996, Sarah McCune ran her first full season in Midget Racing. By the end of the season, Sarah had scored twelve top-ten finishes in fifteen races and won three of them. As a result, she was invited to attend the Lyn St. James Driving School that November. This is significant because Lyn had previously competed in the top tier of American single seater racing - IndyCar - and was the first woman to do so. McCune then made her Infinite Pro Series debut also at Chicagoland in 2005 for Sam Schmidt Motorsports where she finished in ninth place. It was her sole appearance in the series.

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Check back soon here on It’s Race Week! for the next in this series that will take a look at the women who competed over the years in Indy Lights.

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The circuit at Zandvoort was first opened in 1948 as part of the wave of renewed interest in motorsport following the Second World War. Originally, the track was made up of a mixture of permanent track and public roads that made their way through the sand dunes of the Zandvoort resort town. The Dutch Automobile Racing Club then brought in 1927 Le Mans winner Sammy Davis to consult on the layout and the rest, as they say, is history.

The first Formula 1 Grand Prix was held in 1952. On that occasion, Alberto Ascari won the race from Pole Position and achieved the fastest lap of the race too. Giuseppe Farina finished in second place with Luigi Villoresi in third. A further thirty four Grand Prix have been held since then with this year’s thirty-fifth edition marking the end of an era as Formula 1 won’t be returning to race there for at least the near future.

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F1 Academy

The all female racing series has competed here in every single season of its existence so far. Three races were held in 2023 with Hamda Al Qubaisi winning two of them - her lap record of 1:35.926 still standing in the series to this day. Carrie Schreiner won the other race held in that event while Marta Garcia, Lena Buhler and Nerea Marti made up the rest of the podium places for those races. Abbi Pulling and Doriane Pin took the honours of victory in 2024, closely followed on the podium by Maya Weug and Nerea Marti.

Last year saw Maya Weug then take Pole Position - which she converted into victory for Sunday’s Race. Alisha Palmowski and Doriane Pin finished behind her on the podium.

Home hero Nina Gademan, herself a wild card in the series in 2024, won Saturday’s race in style, bringing together a wonderful full circle moment in her own motorsport story. Lia Block finished in second place, claiming her maiden podium in the series with Weug in third.

Now full time driver Esmee Kosterman will be back competing at Zandvoort this year too, having followed in Gademan’s footsteps last year and becoming a Wild Card Driver for her home event. With Max Verstappen competing for Red Bull in Formula 1, Dutch fans will have three of their own to support across the two series when racing gets underway in late August.

Lewis Hamilton holds the lap record of 1:11.097 around the 2.6 mile circuit which he set back in 2021. The circuit itself is known for its nineteen degree banked corners at T3 and T14, providing a unique and memorable challenge for all drivers who race there. Held in August this year, the weather could be anything from beautiful blue skies to stormy clouds that threaten to make the race weekend a wash out - we’ve seen both in recent memory.

Last time out, F1 Academy went racing in Silverstone as part of the British Grand Prix weekend. Alisha Palmowski and Emma Felbermayr won the two races that weekend with the former leading the latter in the Championship heading out of the weekend and into Zandvoort by thirty points. Home hero Nina Gademan sits a further twenty-eight points back from Felbermayr in third with fifty Championship points to her name.

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