Edgar takes first F1 Academy win in last race of inaugural season

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Jessica Edgar claimed her and Rodin Carlin’s maiden F1 Academy victory in the final race of the championship’s inaugural season at Austin.

The Briton drove unchallenged to the win, leading every lap after fending off Prema’s Marta Garcia at turn one.

Campos Racing’s Nerea Marti finished second, while championship winner Garcia took the chequered flag in third place. Hers and Chloe Chong’s points were enough for Prema to clinch the teams’ title over MP Motorsport.

ART Grand Prix’s Lena Buhler beat MP’s Hamda Al Qubaisi to become the series runner-up.

Edgar started from pole position after topping qualifying two on Friday, thanks to a late 2m07.962s lap, the only one to break the 2m08s barrier.

She held on to the lead at the start as she covered the inside into turn one to resist the attack of Garcia, who lined up alongside her. The Prema driver opted for the outside line, and ended up losing second place to Marti, who had a better exit out of the first corner.

Further down the order, Carlin’s Abbi Pulling suffered a slow start from fifth place. However, strong braking into turn one resulted in Pulling dropping just one place from her grid position to Hamda Al Qubaisi.

The race progressed with the top six drivers running within one second of each other, but not close enough to battle for position.

Halfway through the 12-lap race, Edgar increased her gap at the front to over one second, as Garcia put pressure on Marti for second place. Behind them, Buhler dropped back one-and-a-half seconds.

On lap 10, Campos’ Lola Lovinfosse made contact with Prema’s Bianca Bustamante at turn 15 as they battled for 11th place. They both rejoined the race, therefore, no safety car was needed. Lovinfosse was handed a five-second time penalty for the incident.

Garcia attempted to snatch second place away from Marti, and got alongside her rival under braking at turn 12. Marti protected the inside well, nevertheless, and did so the following lap as well to finish the race ahead of her countrywoman.

Race result (12 laps)