What Are Some of The F1 Academy Graduates Doing in 2026?
Take a look at where some of the most famous faces from F1 Academy are today.
With three seasons of F1 Academy now in the rear view mirror, the all-female racing series has seen a plethora of drivers graduate from it and go off to pastures new. But what have those drivers been doing and where are they now?
It’s Race Week! takes a look at six of F1 Academy’s alumni and how what they’re doing now is not only benefiting themselves but also paving the way for other women entering motorsport in the future.
Marta Garcia
For many general and die-hard motorsport fans, Marta Garcia will already be a household name. The 25-year-old Spaniard is someone who oftentimes comes across as having been around for a lot longer than she actually has been. Such is the breadth and depth of her career so far.
Joining F1 Academy in its inaugural season in 2023, Marta notched up seven race wins from the twenty-one races. On top of that, she scored five additional podiums, five pole positions and six fastest laps. Garcia finished P1 in the Championship by the end of the year with 278 points, 56 points clear of Lena Buhler in P2.
After winning in F1 Academy, Garcia moved over to the Formula Regional European Championship, where she raced with Iron Dames in 2024. This came about as part of F1 Academy’s prize for winning the Championship. At the same time, she competed in the Ligier European Series for four races, an endurance racing series, also with Iron Dames. Two wins in this series in Spa and Portugal came Marta’s way, and her transition into endurance racing looked to have gone very well indeed.
The move from single-seaters to endurance racing is not an uncommon one in motorsport. Many single-seater drivers do it not only to stay afloat in the racing world when competition for seats is especially high, but also to further develop their overall racecraft abilities. The more different disciplines of racing one competes in, the more rounded a driver becomes and their ability to adapt from one racing series to the next becomes more and more impressive.
We’ve also seen drivers use this pathway to return to single-seater racing. When Mick Schumacher left Formula 1, he spent time racing in the World Endurance Championship with Alpine before securing his seat for the 2026 IndyCar Season with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. While it may come across as frustrating to some fans to see the pathway towards higher classes of single-seater racing appear to become closed off to a driver like Marta, it’s a door that is not as firmly shut as it may seem.
Iron Dames and Formula E Debut
In 2025, Marta teamed up once again with Iron Dames to compete in the Le Man Cup GT3, a support series for the European Le Mans Series. She finished in P4 overall. This was made even more impressive due to the fact that she had a massive shunt at the season opener in Barcelona and also had to miss racing at Le Mans due to her teammate being injured. On her comeback in Spa, however, she hit the ground running with a podium finish. Marta then followed this up with a victory in Silverstone, her first win in this category of racing, and a solid P5 finish in Portugal.
Marta also made her Formula E debut back in 2024, taking part in the rookie test with ERT - now Cupra Kiro. Later that same year, she tested with Porsche in the pre-season women’s test. She then switched teams again, partnering with Lola Yamaha ABT in this season’s pre-season women’s test. Experience across multiple teams allows Marta to enhance her skills at transitioning into different working environments, learning and adapting to differing procedures and not letting these behind-the-scenes changes negatively impact her performance inside the car. Being involved with Formula E consistently like this also helps her to keep the door ajar to the single-seater world.
While we don’t yet know what Garcia’s plans are for 2026, it’s clear that a number of options are open to her. There’s also the potential to switch things up entirely again and explore a new corner of the motorsport landscape.
The Al Qubaisi Sisters: Amna & Hamda
Following her two seasons in F1 Academy, the elder Al Qubaisi, Amna, also moved over into endurance racing. She competed in the Ligier European Series JS P4 with Team Virage in 2025. It was a unique situation as her sister, Hamda, was also racing with her as her teammate. Amna achieved multiple P3 results in Barcelona, Spa and Silverstone.
Amna would go on to finish in P4 overall in the Championship, just eleven points behind P3. Earlier this year, she doubled down on her endurance racing potential by competing in the 2025–26 24H Series Middle East at the Dubai Autodrome. During the race, she was running very solidly in the podium places before contact with another car resulted in her having to retire from the race.
Like Marta, perhaps Amna is honing her craft in another way aside from in single-seater racing. But her participation in the endurance race at Dubai could suggest that she’s looking to develop her skills in this discipline of racing, perhaps with an eye on the European Le Mans Series or even the World Endurance Championship in the years to come.
Hamda, the younger Al Qubaisi, joined her sister in the Ligier European Series JS P4 with Team Virage after her stint in F1 Academy. The move from single-seaters to prototype machinery is not always a straightforward one, but it’s not the first time that members of her family have competed in this type of racing, with her father being a well-known endurance racing driver in the past.
Both Hamda and Amna have expressed interest in competing alongside and against their father in a race, so perhaps the sisters’ delve into this style of racing is leading them closer to realising that dream. Hamda is also two years younger than Amna, and while age shouldn’t make a difference, drivers are often judged on this, and younger drivers are often prioritised over older ones - even if the gap is only a couple of years.
By switching disciplines and being able to learn both from her father and her sister, Hamda is laying a solid foundation to ensure a lengthy career in motorsport.
Nerea Marti
In 2025, Nerea moved across to Endurance Racing. Part of the BMW M Racing Academy and racing for BMW España, Nerea competed in the Supercars Endurance Championship. She competed in the series back in 2024 too, where she got onto the podium three times. In 2025, Nerea built on that success by winning a race at Jarama. She then repeated this feat by winning in Valencia too and would finish the season in P5 overall in the GT4 Pro Class. Just six points stood between her and third place.
Nerea also transitioned into the E1 Series with Team Alula for the final two rounds of the 2025 season. She joined the team again for the opening round of 2026 in Jeddah, where she finished in third place. It wasn’t the only electric racing series that she would be involved in though as Nerea went on to become an ambassador for Andretti. She tested with the team in the Formula E pre-season women’s test, having tested with them in 2024 too.
When you combine her sublime single-seater ability (P4 overall in both seasons of F1 Academy, along with a solid stint and string of results in W Series) with her proven adaptability to both endurance racing and electric racing, Nerea presents herself as a strong and reliable competitor who is an exciting prospect to any team on the lookout for a new driver signing.
A proven winner and podium finisher across all forms of racing she’s competed in in recent years, Nerea is reminiscent of more traditional, old school racing drivers who used to compete in just about anything. Being able to not only do that but also deliver results makes her someone to watch with great interest not only for the rest of the year, but into 2027 and beyond.
Bianca Bustamante
Following a less-than-stellar second and final season of F1 Academy in 2024, it was unclear as to where Bianca would land in 2025. Post F1 Academy, though, Bianca was able to secure a seat in the GB3 Championship with Elite Motorsport. Bianca scored points in seventeen of the twenty-four races and finished in P22 overall.
This year, Bianca has once again doubled down on making it in single-seater racing, rather than pivoting into an alternative racing category. The Filipino has signed with Palou Motorsport to compete in the Euro-Cup 3 Series. In the opening round in Portugal, Bianca had a highest finish of P13. An unfortunate error in the final race sent her tumbling down the order after having made significant progress up through the field prior to that.
Still, at only twenty-one years of age, much of the racing that Bianca is doing is to help her gain more and more valuable experience inside the car out on track. Seat time is difficult to come by in racing, regardless of the category and on paper, results often don’t tell the full story, leading to drivers being judged too harshly too soon into their careers. But by committing to single seater again for another year, Bianca is demonstrating how seriously she’s taking the challenge and that she wants to succeed.
Moreover, Bianca has also been signed up as a development driver in Formula E with Cupra Kiro. The first major duty she had to undergo for the team was representing them at their rookie test in Berlin and then again in the pre-season women’s test in Valencia. Much like Marta Garcia, Nerea Marti and Abbi Pulling, her place there both helps to normalise the presence of women in single-seater racing, gives them an opportunity to develop their skills in different machinery and opens up another potential pathway for them to compete in a high level of racing in the future.
Abbi Pulling
Having raced in British F4 for a number of races in 2024 alongside her F1 Academy duties, where she won a race alongside two further podiums, it was only natural for Abbi to move into GB3 in 2025. The F1 Academy Champion had the highest result of P3 at Brands Hatch, becoming the first woman to do so in the series since its formation. She would go on to finish in P10 overall that year. In 2026, she’ll return to that series for her second full season, competing once again for Rodin Motorsport.
But that’s not all. In 2025, the Nissan Formula E Team signed Pulling to be their test and reserve driver. She took part in the Formula E rookie test in Berlin back in July as well as the women’s test held in Valencia back in October and the series’ recent rookie practice session in Miami.
While not a full-time seat racing in the series, Abbi’s role here, as with Bianca’s too, is steadily normalising young women taking on these roles at teams and further paving the way for a woman to get the opportunity of competing in the series on a regular basis in the near future. By driving in Formula E too and having a consistent relationship with one of the teams further captures her intent to make single seater racing her prime focus of where she wants to compete in not only this year, but in the future.
Like Bianca, Abbi has appeared to pick her path and is determined to throw everything she has at it until she succeeds. That kind of commitment hopefully won’t go unnoticed, along with the results she’s achieving to back up the potential many know her to hold.
Doriane Pin
Pin finished her rookie season of F1 Academy in an impressive second place overall with only the unstoppable force of Abbi Pulling being able to beat her to the title.
However, in 2025, it was Pin who took that mantle and quite simply dominated. The Mercedes-backed driver won four races and collected a further four podiums with a lowest result all season of P6. She stood 15 points clear of Maya Weug at the end of the year, sealing the 2025 Championship in Las Vegas.
Prior to the finale in Las Vegas, Pin hinted that whether or not she won the Championship would ultimately decide if she continued along the single-seater ladder or returned to endurance racing. With the Championship now in her back pocket, many thought a seat in GB3 or something similar was on the cards for the French Driver. Instead, it’s been revealed that Pin will, in fact, return to her endurance racing roots as she competes in the LMP3 category of the European Le Mans Series with Duqueine Racing. Alongside this, though, Doriane has also been given the role as a test and development driver for the Mercedes F1 Team - hinting that her future in single-seater racing may not be done quite yet.
Having both pathways open to her will be a huge relief for Pin, as she’ll be able to continue exploring both properly without risking compromising a future in either for the sake of the other. As much as it may seem like an obvious point to make, Pin getting this chance also helps set the standard for other women looking to compete in both categories in the future. The more examples of it that are seen, as demonstrated by Pin, Pulling, Bustamante, etc. the less reason there will be to deny that to others in the future.