McLaren’s Ella Lloyd takes maiden F1 Academy win in Jeddah

Photo: F1 Academy

Ella Lloyd resisted a final-lap charge from Maya Weug to score her first single-seater victory in the opening F1 Academy race of the weekend in Jeddah.

McLaren-backed Lloyd snatched the lead at the start from the inside of the front-row, while her Rodin Motorsport team-mate Emma Felbermayr was slow away from reversed-grid pole and slipped to second.

Campos Racing’s Alisha Palmowski climbed from fifth to prevail in a three-way battle for third at turn one with MP Motorsport’s Alba Harup Larsen and Prema’s Tina Hausmann, the latter slipping to sixth behind Larsen’s team-mate Weug.

A mistake by Larsen further round the opening lap allowed Weug to gain another place, and the Ferrari Academy member immediately closed in on the battle for second. Palmowski passed Felbermayr under braking into the final corner, and Weug pounced to follow Palmowski through into third as the car started lap two.

Weug briefly took third away from Palmowski at the beginning of lap four but then let her rival back through having missed the first chicane. Lloyd meanwhile built a 3.1 second lead, but that was eradicated when the safety car was deployed due to a three-car incident at turn two.

Having started from the back of the field following her qualifying crash, Lia Block was spun around by her ART Grand Prix stablemate Courtney Crone and, unable to avoid the melee, Rodin’s Chloe Chong retired on the spot with front-right suspension damage.

Lloyd maintained the lead when the race resumed on lap five of 13, while Palmowski resisted a challenge from Weug to hold onto second. Prema’s points leader Doriane Pin immediately displaced Felbermayr from fifth, and the Mercedes-AMG junior wrestled fourth away from Larsen on the following lap.

Having broken away from the battle behind, the front three ran nose-to-tail. Palmowski came under increasing pressure from Weug, and the pair’s squabble allowed Lloyd to edge out a small gap.

Weug used Lloyd’s slipstream to finally pass Palmowski as the penultimate lap commenced. Having caught Lloyd by the final corner of the race, Weug missed out on victory by 0.173s at the chequered flag.

Pin also went on a late charge, setting the fastest lap of the race to catch Palmowski, who withstood the pressure to keep third by 0.2s.

Larsen came home in a slightly lonely fifth, while Hausmann passed Felbermayr shortly after the safety car restart and finished sixth. Chambers took seventh ahead of Prema’s Nina Gademan, while Felbermayr was shuffled back to ninth and ART’s Aurelia Nobels rounded out the top-10.

Race results (13 laps)