F1 Academy to share weekends with F1 calendar from 2024
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali(Image: Getty Images)
Stefano Domenicali, the F1 CEO, has announced that F1 Academy, the brand new driver category focusing on preparing and developing young female talents so they can progress up to higher stages of motorsports, will share race weekends with the current F1 calendar in 2024.
The first season of F1 Academy commences this year and will involve five teams, all of which are involved in different junior formula categories, entering three drivers each that will make up the 15-car grid. The teams and their drivers will compete over seven events and 21 races, all under the management and observation of Managing Director Susie Wolff.
During the 2023 season, five of the races will occur at current F1 tracks; the season finale will take place on the same weekend as the United States Grand Prix.
The F1 Academy calendar in 2024 will align with F1 so that Academy race weekends will also be the same as F1 race weekends. Domenicali told Sky Sports F1 after Free Practice 2: “We haven’t yet started the 2023 F1 Academy season on the track, but I can confirm with you that next year, F1 Academy will be on the racing weekend with Formula 1. Of course, not everywhere, but that will be part of the plan to promote F1 Academy... that’s something we are keen on, that hopefully, that will be the right boost for the season to grow; of course, we have just started.
“F1 took the leadership on that to try to do something, investing, believing that by creating attention to that project we can have hopefully as soon as we can, a girl, woman, in F1. That’s our hope and that’s why we are really investing a lot.
“Susie Wolff will lead this plan, this programme, and in the next couple of weeks we will announce the details of what is more than on the track because we need to start to create awareness.”
Wolff said: “It’s great that the F1 Academy will be racing during F1 events next year and this highlights again the importance of the series to Stefano and the team at F1.
“We are looking forward to getting the season underway in a few weeks' time and while there is lots of work to do, we are forming a clear plan to build a project that really works for the future of female talent in motorsport.”
Susie Wolff, Managing Director of F1 Academy (Image: Getty Images)
Bruno Michel, Formula Motorsport Limited CEO, will help manage the series and will oversee that F1 supports the series by covering the cost of each car with a budget of €150,000 each. The drivers and the teams will deal with the rest of the budget.
F1 Academy begins on 28-29 April at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. The season will then continue a week later at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain.