ART Grand Prix has completed its F1 Academy line-up by signing Ferrari junior Aurelia Nobels.
The 17-year-old Brazilian is in her third year of racing in Formula 4. Her single-seater career started in 2022 in her home country’s F4 championship, and after missing the final third of the season she ended up 16th in the standings with a best finish of eighth. A single Danish F4 outing led to a seventh place finish, while she failed to score in a Spanish F4 cameo.
Nobels won the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission’s FDA-affiliated Girls on Track Rising Stars programme that year, earning her spot in the Ferrari Driver Academy and a paid-for Italian F4 drive with Iron Lynx. However she instead raced for Prema in that series and Euro 4 last year. She did not score in either, coming 22nd in Euro 4’s standings and 26th in Italian F4.
Last month Nobels did two F4 United Arab Emirates rounds with Sainteloc Racing, with a best finish of 19th. She will be team-mate to Lia Block and Bianca Bustamante in F1 Academy, and her car will be sponsored by sportwear brand Puma which has just been announaced as a partner of the all-female series.
“I’m super happy. It’s a new opportunity and I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot,” said Nobels of joining ART GP, with her F1 Academy move having been announced by Ferrari last December.
The structure of F1 Academy rounds will change for its second season, with the third race and second qualifying session of each event scrapped. The fastest laps from qualifying will set race one’s grid, with the second-best laps used for race two’s grid.
Prema will get to run extra cars as wildcard entries, rather than be capped to three drivers like every other team, and Reema Juffali has been announced as driving its fourth car for next month’s season-opening round in Jeddah.
“It’s an honour and a privilege to be representing my country, especially in my hometown,” said Juffali. “The day F1 arrived in Jeddah was the clash of both my worlds and now I am actually going to be participating. I’m really looking forward to it and happy to share the experience with my friends and family who are based here.
“As the saying goes: if you can’t see it, you won’t believe it. So, hopefully Saudi fans can see that there is a Saudi racing driver out there and it will get them to thinking that ‘this is something I can do!’. It is for this reason I have decided to take this challenge on.”
It will mark a return to single-seaters for the 32-year-old, who spent last year racing in GT World Challenge Europe. She failed to scored in either the Endurance or Sprint cups, but in 2022 came sixth overall in the rival International GT Open series and was the top Bronze Cup entry in the Spa 24 Hours.
Before that she mustered just three top-five finishes from 102 races over three years in junior single-seaters.