F1 Academy champion Marta Garcia will compete in next year’s Formula Regional European Championship with Prema, the team has announced.
The 23-year-old comfortably won the inaugural season of the all-women racing championship, organised in collaboration with Formula 1, taking the crown with two races to spare at last weekend’s final round at the Circuit of the Americas.Set up to provide opportunities to develop female drivers and increase the representation of women in junior formulae, F1 Academy is contested by five established junior teams each running three cars. Prema, who ran Garcia this season, have confirmed she will race with them in the FREC series in 2024 with her seat fully funded through combinations from F1 Academy, Prema, chassis manufacturer Tatuus and tyre supplier Pirelli.
FREC is the European series of Formula Regional, which sits a step below the international F3 series that supports Formula 1. Many established current and former F2 drivers, including Frederik Vesti, Paul Aron, Isack Hadjar and Dan Ticktum have competed in the FREC series.
FREC has announced that teams competing in the championship will be granted a fourth car in the series should they sign a driver who finishes in the top three in the previous year’s F1 Academy.
Garcia described stepping up to FREC as an “amazing opportunity” for her career progression.
“Coming from F1 Academy, it’s going to be a big step,” she said. “We know we will have to work a lot with the team to succeed but I’m really determined to do well. I can’t thank F1 Academy enough. It is such a fantastic initiative, and it is the right way to do it, trying to take drivers with the best results to the top level.”
F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff said the series would reduce the financial contribution that drivers are expected to make to compete in their series from €150,000 (£130,489) to €100,000 for 2024.
“F1 Academy is all about progression and creating more opportunities for young women across motorsport, so to offer a fully funded seat in FREC for our inaugural champion is a significant moment,” Wolff said.
“The fact that she will also continue to race with Prema, whom she has built a relationship with and are current team champions in this category, will also aid in her future development.
“I am proud of the progress we have made in our first season, and as we begin to build for our 2024 season where we will join the F1 calendar, this announcement, alongside the decision to further subsidise the 2024 F1 Academy driver contribution to €100,000, is a statement of our continued commitment to make motorsport more accessible and break down the barriers faced by female drivers.”
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MichaelN
26th October 2023, 16:22
Good stuff, this is the part where most trip up; money. It’s not the exact case here (as the funding comes in from other parties), but in general a junior series funding their champions to progress would be a better way to go about things than F2’s arbitrary ban on champions racing in the series.
It’ll also be good to see how she performs in ‘the real world’. While the idea behind the sex-segregation at the entry-level series is understandable (to a point), that can’t last forever. But she also needs some time. If Red Bull can pretend Tsunoda needs four seasons to get to grips with F1, let’s cut these juniors some slack as well.
amped
26th October 2023, 19:18
Her title challengers in F1 Academy were two drivers that are also 20th & 33rd in F4 this year. To say that the FRECA drivers are likely going to dispatch her with ease is an understatement.
Jamie Chadwick moved up to FREC following her first W Series ‘title’ win, she was quickly shown to be not up to the standard required to compete at the front. Marta couldn’t beat Chadwick…
Josh
26th October 2023, 20:03
Why the FIA are pumping money into this is beyond me. Why not spend the money to seed karting clubs and championships in countries in Africa and the Middle East? Maybe there’s some driving prodigy who desperately wants a chance but has no way to do so. Because all the money is being spent on below average drivers who have ALREADY made it onto the ladder.
It should be about talent, not ‘representation’ or any other vague nonsense.
Lewis Hamilton never had any black (driving) role models and he succeeded regardless, because to ACTUALLY succeed drivers need determination. Not to be dissuaded simply because people who look like you aren’t doing it yet.
Are we really training a generation of women drivers to succeed and inspire the next generation to succeed if they’re constantly coddled, protected, and promoted beyond their skill level?
MichaelN
27th October 2023, 16:28
That happens all the time in sports where money and marketing plays such a big role. It is a very rare driver indeed that makes their way through the junior series on talent alone. So what comes out of F3 and F2 is, and always has been, a mix of the coddled (the rich kids), the protected (the token nationalities) and those promoted beyond their level because their quicker competitors in junior series couldn’t, for whatever reason, make the financial side work out.
Even England, with its huge motorsport industry and plenty of racing clubs and tracks, only brings forth a champion like a Hamilton, a Button, a Mansell every 10 years or so.
Josh
27th October 2023, 16:39
I take your point, but this is on a whole other level. Two exclusive racing series over the last four years, guaranteed seats, development drives etc… this is a waste of resources an an enormous level, and all for a demographic which doesn’t really care about motorsport. Why we’ve got it into our heads that we MUST crowbar women into motorsport when they’re doing just fine already (they all made it onto the ladder themselves right?) is beyond me.
I read a Fangio quote once (but can’t find the damn thing) that went sort of like this…
Interviewer: Would you say that you’re the best driver in the world?
JMF: No, of course not. How could we know? Maybe the best driver in the world is a small boy in a tropical jungle who’s never seen a car in his life. What are the chances that out of the tiny % of the world population that has tried racing, that it’s ME that’s the best.
That’s exactly what I think were missing out on when we subsidise below average, and perfectly well off drivers.
melanos
27th October 2023, 22:54
Much as I admire El Chueco, he was wrong here
(because he was of course the best in the world, and still is, but that’s not my point here)
To be the best at something you need two things: a superb natural aptitude, and lots of practice and dedication.
Maybe that boy in the jungle had the best aptitude in the world, and could potentially be the best driver. With practice. But if the boy has never seen a car and cannot discern the throttle from the brake, certainly he is not the driver in the world, and chances are he’ll never be.
I agree that maybe many thousands of people could potentially have outdroven El Chueco, had they got the chance and the dedication. But the fact is, no one ever did.
Dusty
26th October 2023, 20:51
I think she should replace Carlos Sainz in Ferrari, that way she would inspire a generation of girls that it’s possible to make it to.a top F1 team.
melanos
27th October 2023, 23:13
As a gift? well, that’s hardly an inspiring thing. If she proves to be better than Carlos, then that’s perfectly fine with me. Anyway there’s plenty of drivers I would see off instead of Carlos.
Zann (@zann)
27th October 2023, 10:06
it could easily turn out that boys really are genetically better at driving racing cars than girls, and then obviously that’d be a thing. The boys could all grow beards to show they’re definitely definitely of that superior gender, and like to support the base of the food chain with insects, and the girls could get back to doing the cooking and having their man’s progeny to bring in the next generation. No need to worry at all :)