Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
F1 Academy held an in-season test this week, before several of its drivers headed to Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit to gain Formula E mileage.
The all-female Formula 4 championship tested at Bahrain on October 28-30, with a morning and afternoon session each day.
Hitech GP was without Aiva Anagnostiadis, who recently had left foot surgery, and Rachel Robertson took her place after debuting in single-seaters with Hitech in Saudi Arabian F4.
Absent from the test’s third day were frontrunners Chloe Chambers (Campos Racing) and McLaren junior Ella Lloyd (Rodin Motorsport), as both will drive in FE’s women’s test tomorrow.
They will be with Envision Racing and Mahindra respectively, and are not the only junior single-seater talents taking part.
Nissan will run its simulator driver Abbi Pulling, the 2024 F1 Academy champion, who came 10th in GB3 this year.
Jamie Chadwick was third in the 2025 European Le Mans Series after her race-winning 2024 Indy Nxt campaign did not take her to IndyCar, and she will reunite with Jaguar who she has tested with since 2020.
The Cupra-partnered Kiro Race Co. team will provide running to its development driver Bianca Bustamante. She was 22nd in GB3 this season.
Maya Weug (MP Motorsport) topped every session of F1 Academy’s test. On the first morning her benchmark laptime was a 2m04.930s, set on just her second flying lap, and she posted a 2m04.773s in the afternoon to lead title rival Doriane Pin (Prema) by 0.167 seconds.
There were spells of inactivity in the morning, with several drivers without a laptime halfway through the three-hour session.
Chambers, Lloyd, Pin and Weug all spent time on top in the afternoon before representative laps were set, with Alisha Palmowski (Campos) first to do so. Weug outpaced her by 0.001s with 11 minutes to go, then Pin went fastest. But Weug broke into the 2m04s and beat her morning benchmark. Palmowski was over half a second behind in third, with Alba Hurup Larsen (MP) fourth.
Nina Gademan (Prema) led the way early on Wednesday morning, then Pin was fastest. Weug moved to the top with a 2m05.191s shortly before Larsen stopping on track caused red flags.
Pin reclaimed top spot after the restart, then Palmowski and Weug lapped sub-2m05s. Joanna Ciconte (MP) was next to be quickest, but Weug bettered her by 0.098s with a 2m04.567s. Chambers and Palmowski were also close to the pace, while Lloyd caused further red flags with an off.
More drivers made it into first place during the afternoon session, and Larsen laid down a 2m04.613s which looked unbeatable until Weug went quickest by 0.056s in the final hour.
Weug punched in a 2m04.873s early on Thursday morning, improved to 2m04.171s then found another 0.021s. Larsen was second in the session, 0.63s behind.
It was Weug on top almost all the way in the afternoon. She posted a 2m04.993s on her second flying lap, which she improved upon by 0.001s far later to have a 0.214s gap over Larsen.