MOTORSPORT – F1 Academy, the all-female international single-seater championship founded by Formula One Group, is holding three days of in-season testing in the kingdom – marking the series’ first-ever appearance at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
The tests kicked off yesterday and continue until tomorrow, offering a total of 18 hours of track time for the series’ competitors – some of whom are supported by F1 teams.
The sessions are being held as part of the lead-up to F1 Academy’s seventh and final round of its 2025 season, which will be taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the US on November 21 and 22.
The championship recently held its sixth meeting at Marina Bay in Singapore earlier this month, and also had races this year in Shanghai, China; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Miami, Florida in the US; Montreal, Canada; and Zandvoort in the Netherlands.
Testing on each of the three days this week is divided into morning and afternoon sessions.
Dutch driver Maya Weug of MP Motorsport, who is backed by Ferrari, topped the timesheet in both of yesterday’s tests. She clocked a quickest mark of two minutes 04.930 seconds in the morning and then followed it up with an afternoon’s best of 2:04.773 around BIC’s 5.412-kilometre Grand Prix track.
Weug was 0.293 seconds quicker than France’s Doriane Pin of Prema Racing, supported by Mercedes, in the first session, while Britain’s Red Bull-backed Alisha Palmowski of Campos Racing was classified third on the times. Weug’s Danish teammate Alba Larsen came fourth, while Australian Joanne Ciconte followed to put three MP Motorsport drivers in the top five.
In yesterday’s afternoon tests, Weug rose to the top of the order in the final minutes of running, going marginally quicker than Pin for the second straight session. Palmowski was over half-a-second off the pace in third, with Larsen took fourth and Austrian Emma Felbermayr of Rodin Motorsport, supported by Sauber, was fifth.
Testing continues today at BIC from 9am.
F1 Academy was launched in 2023. It is based at the Formula Four-level, and it provides the best female talent from all over the world the experience needed to develop and prepare for progress to higher levels of motorsport.
This year, the grid has expanded to 18 cars. Aside from MP, Prema, Campos, and Rodin, the other teams competing are Hitech TGR and ART Grand Prix.
Pin is the current drivers’ championship leader with the final round to go in Las Vegas. She tops the standings with 151 points, followed by Weug on 142 and McLaren-backed Briton Ella Lloyd of Rodin with 101.
Prema are in first place in the teams’ championship table with 257 points, followed by MP with 208 and Campos on 187 points.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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