Rachel Robertson might look like any other teenager from southern England as she grabs lunch with friends or heads to college, but when she slips into her racing suit and settles behind the wheel of a 174-horsepower race car, she transforms into one of the most promising young drivers on the planet. At just 18 years old, Robertson is part of an elite circle: the women competing in the F1 Academy, a female-only racing championship launched by the Formula 1 Group and now entering its 2026 season.
Robertson’s journey to the fast lane began at 14, when she first took up go-karting. She quickly noticed she was usually the only girl on the circuit, and the boys she raced against didn’t always take her seriously. As Robertson recalls, “A lot of the time in their head, [they think] 'Oh, it's just a girl in front of me, I'll just put her off track.'” Yet when she outpaced them, silence was the usual response. “They don't want to acknowledge that you're actually better,” she says. “If you lose to a few of them, then they'll be like, 'That was good.' But if you win? They will not say anything.”
She’s not alone in her experience. Esmee Kosterman, a 20-year-old Dutch driver and fellow F1 Academy competitor, shares a similar story. Kosterman’s love for racing started at age six, inspired by her father’s passion for motorsport and her own desire to swap dance recitals for the race track. “I told my parents, 'I don't want to dance, I want to go as well, on the circuit - driving!' And there it all started,” she laughs, recalling the moment she found her calling. Like Robertson, Kosterman faced skepticism from male peers: “They'd always tell me, 'It's not for girls' and 'it's not your sport'. They'd make fun of it.”
In its second year, the F1 Academy is already making waves, thanks in part to drivers like Alba Larsen. The 17-year-old Danish racer, now in her second season and sponsored by Ferrari, never imagined she’d end up here. Her motorsport spark was lit during the Covid-19 lockdown, when a friend invited her to try go-karting. “I wasn't going very fast… but I just remember such an adrenaline rush,” Larsen says. “You have all these emotions - and I think that's when I really fell in love with driving.”
But for years, Larsen doubted whether her passion could become a profession. “I couldn't see any women competing at the top level of professional motorsport,” she admits. That’s precisely the challenge F1 Academy was created to address. While motorsport is one of the few sports where men and women can theoretically compete together, the reality at the highest levels is stark: men with money dominate, and female participation remains stubbornly low. Only about 10% of drivers in motorsport are women, peaking at 13% in karting before dropping to just 7% in higher categories. The last woman to race in Formula 1 was Italy’s Lella Lombardi in 1976.
The F1 Academy, founded in 2023, functions much like a graduate program for talented young women who have proven themselves in karting. It offers funding, professional training, and, crucially, time on track—resources that have historically been reserved for men. The format is simple yet demanding: 14 races across seven rounds, with the champion earning a fully-funded seat in their chosen discipline. Most drivers get just two years in the academy, though an exemption for a third year is possible if it aids their development. The pressure is intense. As Robertson puts it, “You want to show [that] out of the box, yes, you can perform. There is pressure that comes with that.” Kosterman adds, “There is no time for mistakes. You want to defend your seat, and if you don't you know: next year, it's not my seat anymore.”
The financial barriers are steep, too. With the cost of an entry-level racing kart exceeding £7,500 (about $10,000), many women struggle to find early investment and sponsorship—an essential ingredient for any aspiring professional driver. Still, the F1 Academy seems built for longevity, boasting multi-year partnerships with all 11 F1 teams and the backing of major sponsors. Its most recent champion, France’s Doriane Pin, is now a development driver for Mercedes F1, while former champions Marta García and Abbi Pulling continue to compete at high levels.
Yet, despite these strides, the 2026 season opener in Shanghai has highlighted persistent challenges in how women are represented in motorsport—both on the track and in the media. During the Chinese Grand Prix weekend at the Shanghai International Circuit, a seemingly small broadcast decision triggered a big debate. As the F1 TV cameras panned the paddock, they cut away from Ferrari Academy driver Alba Larsen to focus instead on Charles Leclerc’s wife, Alexandra Leclerc. The moment, captured and widely shared on X (formerly Twitter), sparked frustration among fans who felt that the broadcast prioritized so-called “WAGs” (wives and girlfriends) over the women actively shaping the sport.
“Was anyone else really pissed off that the camera directors cut away from alba to show alexandra????” wrote one user, echoing the sentiments of many. The backlash quickly grew, with fans pointing out a pattern: female engineers, strategists, and junior drivers often get less screen time than VIP guests or partners of male drivers. “Remember that women in Motorsport dinner where all the wags were invited but the engineers / strategists were left out…..” another fan commented, lamenting that “Women in Motorsport are truly losing their meaning.”
For all the positive momentum generated by initiatives like the F1 Academy, these controversies reveal that true representation requires more than just marketing campaigns or symbolic gestures. Fans are demanding that the spotlight shine on the women who are making a difference—whether they’re turning wrenches in the garage, calling race strategies from the pit wall, or fighting for every tenth of a second on the track.
Alba Larsen herself feels the weight of expectation. “You can't make too many mistakes because then people will say, 'They're women drivers, of course that's what's gonna happen.' But that's not how it is,” she insists. “I can be aggressive too!” For Robertson, the camaraderie and competition among the F1 Academy drivers is both a relief and a revelation. “Women neurologically are not the same as men. There's so many differences, and how that shows when all 18 of us are driving together, I'm very curious to see,” she says.
The 2026 F1 Academy season, which kicked off in Shanghai from March 13-15, is underway, and with it comes renewed hope for a more inclusive future in motorsport. With robust institutional support and a growing chorus of fans demanding better representation, the women of F1 Academy are racing not just for trophies, but for the chance to inspire the next generation—and maybe, just maybe, to put a woman back on the Formula 1 grid for the first time in half a century.