Formula 1 has revealed the five teams that will run the cars in its new F1 Academy championship for women.
The Formula 4 series will be managed by Formula 2’s CEO Bruno Michel, and it is teams from his series that have been selected. ART Grand Prix, Campos Racing, Carlin, MP Motorsport and Prema are the five, and each will run three cars each.There are direct F1 links with two of the teams, as ART GP was established by Alfa Romeo’s outgoing team principal Frederic Vasseur and Campos’s eponymous founder Adrian Campos raced in F1 in the 1980s.
All five teams have achieved substantial success in junior single-seater racing. Since 2017, ART GP have run two of F2’s champions, Prema have run three, MP won the driver and team titles this year while Carlin won the teams’ title in 2018. Campos won a title when the series was previously known as GP2.
The five teams have committed to participate in the series’ first three-year cycle, Michel explained. “We know them very well and we have been collaborating with each one for many years,” he said.
“They are well-known for their experience and expertise in nurturing and developing young drivers. I fully trust that they will give the drivers competing in the F1 Academy the keys to grow technically, and that they will help them with the physical and mental preparations for the journey ahead.”
Although the calendar for F1 Academy will not be unveiled until next year, a format has already been decided upon with seven rounds of three races each and an additional 15 test days for competitors. Driver signings will also be revealed in 2023 now the teams taking part have been officially decided upon.
Tatuus’s second-generation F4 car, engines from Abarth and tyres from Pirelli will form the basis of the series, with running costs subsidised by F1.
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Yaboy
16th December 2022, 11:14
I guess the w series and F1 academy will be in different race weekends from now on
S
16th December 2022, 11:18
Which begs the question – who will drive in both?
HT Onk (@pweb87)
16th December 2022, 13:14
Hasn‘t w series faltered at the end of last season?
joshj81
16th December 2022, 13:45
Is that a bad thing? Don’t the boys already race in many different series at once already?
t1redmonkey (@t1redmonkey)
16th December 2022, 13:50
I thought W Series was dead and this new thing was it’s replacement? I might be wrong, haven’t followed it that closely.
MattDS (@mattds)
16th December 2022, 15:17
@t1redmonkey officially the series have ended the 2022 season early and want to be back in 2023.
The question is now whether they will succeed in that, but it seems the FIA have decided to put another nail in their coffin.
AntonyP
16th December 2022, 15:36
The nail in W Series coffin is it’s at least £7.5m worth of debt…
It doesn’t have a quality product to sell, it is basically a series of not good enough drivers competing against each other to be the best of the worst. It has little value, costs a fortune to operate and realistically achieves nothing other than setting fire to money.
I wonder why investors haven’t been knocking their door down to give them money?
Alan Dove
16th December 2022, 16:20
I could have bought 1500 cadet karts for that. The reality is you aren’t going to get a wave of female drivers without increasing participation rates to 250 more per country per year starting.
Obviously W Series is a commercial operation aimed at making money (and taking credit) off the back of a female drivers success.
I just find it remarkable the sums of money that float about to support what is going to amount to maybe 40-50 drivers. I could take that same sum and reach thousands. And those are the numbers you need to reach if you want actually change long term.
I know W Series only raised the money off the back of the ‘idea’, I am just trying to square the ‘intent’ with the actuality of what happens.
Coventry Climax
17th December 2022, 0:26
Sorry, but I frequently watched it and to me it was equally if not at times more entertaining than F1. No DRS for instance, was a big plus to me.
Sure there was one driver that took all the wins. But how’s that different from F1?
Not good enough drivers competing eachother? Ha, what’s different to Mazepin, Latifi, Schumacher, Stroll and arguably some others in the back of the F1 field competing amongst each other?
Then on the value of it: It is show, right? And that’s the sole thing F1 aims to be as well these days.
Costs a fortune to operate: Same thing; no difference to F1.
All shows are essentially pointless in that they do not help mankind forward. Arguably, for sports it’s the same.
There’s a saying that the best way to become a millionaire is to invest in motorracing. And start out as a billionaire.
S
17th December 2022, 7:00
So the almost complete lack of on-track competition is better because there’s no DRS? It’s really that important to you?
Not acceptable in F1 either – but at least we know that it’s about mechanical and design differences in F1. Some cars are just faster than others, regardless of who is driving them.
They aren’t there just because of their gender, for starters. There’s also the quality of their competitors, and the depth of the competition they faced.
It’s on a slightly different scale to F1…
As for the point of each series – they are vastly different on a secondary level. Sure, they are both marketing shows first and foremost, but F1 doesn’t use sexual discrimination as its core gimmick.
Sports can absolutely provide positive benefits for humanity. Encouraging friendly competition, cooperation, teamwork, and bettering both oneself and each other as a society, for example.
Unfortunately, W Series and this F1 Academy intend to do the opposite.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
16th December 2022, 14:42
Still MIA: top junior talents in their deliberately limited junior talent pool.
Alan Dove
16th December 2022, 15:29
F1 investing 6,000,000 in 5 teams to run just 15 drivers.
While I don’t advocate to subsidise a gender, for perspective, that’s about 1200 brand new cadet karts (could get many more if s/h). If you want a female F1 driver, and this is actually how you do it, then you need to increase participation rates at Cadet age to around 250 more drivers per country per year.
So F1 could literally buy 1200 brand new karts and give them to kids for free (they’re parents would still need to run them etc… but this f1 academy project requires an equal 150,000 from the driver) for the money invested in this.
makes ya think.
1200 young kids investment program
or 5 teams banking over a million each.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
16th December 2022, 19:05
Yup, exactly on point! 👍
S
17th December 2022, 0:20
Perhaps – but this wouldn’t create any marketing exposure, which is all this is about.
It’s not actually at all about getting women into F1 or even into motorsport, it’s just about looking like they are doing something to get women into motorsport and F1.
A token – virtue signalling. Nothing more, nothing less.
superman
18th December 2022, 3:58
Forced diversity is discrimination.
Sergey Martyn
18th December 2022, 8:54
I won’t be surprised if this series will be dominated by transgender drivers.
Sergey Martyn
18th December 2022, 8:48
Return grid girls and forget w series.