Photo: F1 Academy
Ava Dobson, Nina Gademan and Rachel Robertson have secured full-time seats in F1 Academy for 2026.
Hitech GP has signed Dobson and Robertson, while Gademan and Esmee Kosterman will race for MP Motorsport in the all-female Formula 4 championship.
Dobson drove Hitech’s wildcard entry in the sole Miami race in 2025 and finished 13th. The 17-year-old American made a USF Juniors cameo in 2023 as a car racing rookie that put her 16th in the standings, and in 2024 did two rounds in GB4 when it ran for F4 cars. With a best finish of ninth, she was 17th in the points table.
Last year was busier, starting off with a full-time GB4 campaign as it switched to a modified version of GB3’s old car. Dobson made the podium once, but was a lowly 19th in the standings. Following her F1 Academy debut, she reunited with Hitech for Saudi Arabian F4 later in the year. Two sixth places were the highlights en route to 11th in the championship.
Scottish racer Robertson made her F1 Academy debut with Hitech in the 2025 finale on Las Vegas’s Strip circuit and made an immediate impact by finishing fourth from 13th on the grid. That event came in the middle of the Saudi F4 season, in which she also netted a fourth place and came 13th in the standings.
The 18-year-old’s primary programme for 2025 though was in prototype sportscars, as she came third in Radical Cup UK where she had earned a factory seat.
Gademan is yet another driver who spent much of last year, and she will race with the branding of the Alpine Formula 1 team on her car for a second season as she switches to MP in F1 Academy.
The 22-year-old Dutchwoman did one F1 Academy round in 2024 with Prema and finished fourth on debut, then as a full-time driver with the team in 2025 she picked up a win (which was on home soil at Zandvoort) and three other podiums to come sixth in the standings.
In 2024 she had focused on British F4, where she drove for Fortec Motorsports as a rookie. The switch to Hitech for 2025 only led to two British F4 appearances in the end, but she raced across the globe with the team. She came 15th in the Iberia-based Formula Winter Series, which she missed the last round of, made a Formula Trophy outing in the United Arab Emirates and two podiums from two rounds in Saudi F4 put her ninth in the points table.
Kosterman was confirmed to be racing in F1 Academy this year last November, but the team she would drive for was not announced until five days ago when MP published a social media post. Like the team, she hails from the Netherlands.
The 20-year-old cameoed in Indian F4 in 2024, and last year made four British F4 outings, came 10th in Saudi F4 and scored on her F1 Academy debut as the wildcard driver at Zandvoort.