Photo: McLaren

McLaren has added Ella Stevens and Ella Hakkinen to its driver development programme and will support two drivers in F1 Academy in 2026.

Ella Lloyd also remains part of the programme and will spend a second season in F1 Academy with Rodin Motorsport next year. Lloyd is currently third in the 2025 standings ahead of this weekend’s final round in Las Vegas, having scored a win at Jeddah and four other podium finishes.

She also raced with Rodin in her sophomore British Formula 4 season this year, coming 14th in the standings after contesting seven of the 10 rounds and taking a podium at Zandvoort.

Stevens will be Lloyd’s 2026 F1 Academy team-mate, in what will be the 19-year-old’s first year racing single-seaters. In September she topped the timesheet in the championship’s inaugural rookie test held at Navarra.

This year she was runner-up in the British Kart Championship’s KZ2 shifter class after coming third in 2024 and fifth in 2023. A long-time protege of Alice Powell, she previously raced internationally in the OK category with Birel ART and the support of Richard Mille in 2022.

Hakkinen is the daughter of McLaren’s two time Formula 1 world champion Mika Hakkinen and the team stated that the 14-year-old will test single-seaters next year “in preparation for 2027”.

She has been racing in the Champions of the Future Academy Program on OK-N class karts where she currently sits fourth in the 2025 standings with two rounds remaining. She previously finished sixth in the same championship’s OK-N Junior class in 2024.

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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.

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Photo: McLaren

The entry list for Formula E’s annual rookie test in Berlin is filling up, with several starts of junior single-seater racing down to drive on July 14.

McLaren Driver Development Programme members Alex Dunne and Ella Lloyd will test for their backer’s FE squad, which Dunne is the reserve driver for. The 19-year-old started in that role this year, and has already contested an FE practice session.

“I’m very excited to be getting another opportunity in the Gen3 Evo at the Berlin rookie test next month,” said Dunne, who is currently in his rookie Formula 2 season and is leading the title race. The Irishman raced in FIA Formula 3 last year.

“Since I joined the team as reserve and development driver, I’ve learnt so much about what it takes to get the maximum out of these cars, and I can’t wait to get out on track again.”

Lloyd too has FE mileage already as she drove on the final day of 2024-25 pre-season testing last November when teams were required to run a woman in at least one of their cars for at least one session.

The 19-year-old Welshwoman is in her second year of racing in Formula 4. As a rookie she claimed four podiums in British F4, and came 11th in the standings after missing a round. She is missing rounds again this season while her focus is on the all-female F1 Academy series where she sits fourth in the points at present with one win and three other podiums.

“I’m really looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the Gen3 Evo car again,” said Lloyd. “I learnt so much at the women’s test in Madrid and I’m excited to have another opportunity to get out on track and put all the preparation I’ve been doing in the simulator into practice.”

Bianca Bustamante also drove for McLaren in the women’s test day, and has now been signed by the Cupra-partnered Kiro Race Co. team (formerly known as Team China Racing, NIO and then ERT) as its development driver and for the rookie test.

The 20-year-old Filipino drove in Formula Regional in 2022, coming 15th in the all-female W Series, then stepped down to F4. She went on to win in F1 Academy and score in a British F4 cameo. This year she’s moved back up the single-seater ladder to GB3, where she is currently 24th in the standings with a best finish of 13th.

“I’m really excited to join Cupra Kiro,” said Bustamante. “In the very short time that we’ve been working together, it’s been incredible to experience the team’s disruptive approach to racing in action and to see the team’s hunger and desire for success first-hand.”

DS Penske has announced the creation of its own driver development programme, and made Nikita Bedrin its first signing and rookie test entrant.

The 19-year-old Russian is an FIA F3 Championship race-winner and cameoed in the 2025 season opener. Since then he has raced in the FRegional European Championship.

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Photo: Red Bull

Three junior single-seater talents have been driving Formula 1 cars recently, at Monza and in a city centre.

Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov was on home soil in Bulgaria last weekend driving in a Red Bull showrun on the streets of its capital city Sofia.

He was at the wheel of 2011’s Red Bull RB7, which is too old for use in F1’s testing of previous car (TPC) programmes, but was still a landmark for the 18-year-old FIA Formula 3 driver since the demo (and the day he did on an airfield the day before to learn how to donut) marked his first ever running in an F1 car.

Aston Martin was at Monza last week with its two-year-old AMR23 car to do TPC running with its junior driver Jak Crawford and his F2 rival Cian Shields.

Crawford drove on Friday, following up previous TPC call-ups and driving in F1’s official young driver test at the end of 2024, and Shields drove on Saturday after previously testing with Aston Martin at Silverstone in April.

The 20-year-old Scot is not connected to the team, and is yet to comment on how his test opportunities have came about.

He started his single-seater career in 2022, coming 13th in GB3 with one win, then stepped up to the F3-level Euroformula for 2023. Four wins and six other podiums helped him become championship runner-up.

He moved across to FIA F3 in 2024, which was an unsuccessful endeavour as he came 30th in the standings with no points and a best finish of 14th place. At the end of the year he joined AIX Racing for two F2 rounds, and finished 11th on his second start, then has remained with the team this season. So far he has matched his best result and sits 20th in the standings.

Last month McLaren handed a long-awaited F1 test debut to its simulator driver Jake Hughes at Barcelona, where he drove its MCL60 car from 2023.

The 31-year-old Englishman was a race-winner in GP3, FIA European F3 and the FIA F3 Championship, and had three-top five finishes from 26 races in F2 from 2020 to ’22.

By then his focus was Formula E, joining Mercedes-EQ as test driver in 2020 and in 2021 becoming its full-time development driver, reserve driver for powertrain customer Venturi Racing and simulator driver for Mercedes-AMG’s F1 team.

Those roles continued into 2022, when Aston Martin also signed him as an F1 simulator driver. Hughes finally joined the FE grid in 2023, and across two seasons with McLaren picked up four poles but only one podium. He left its FE squad to join rival Maserati for the 2024-25 season, and has claimed his second podium with the team.

McLaren junior and Formula 4 driver Ella Lloyd has been called up by the team for FE’s rookie test in Berlin next month. She also drove for them in FE’s women’s test at Jarama last November.

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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)

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Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Rodin Motorsport has announced Ella Lloyd and James Piszcyk as its first two signings for the 2025 British Formuola 4 season.

The pair both already have experience in the championship, with Piszcyk contesting the 2023 season while Lloyd was on the grid in 2024.

Lloyd signed with Rodin last October at the same time as joining as the McLaren Driver Development Programme, since she was to spend this year driving in the all-female and F4-spec F1 Academy for the former and with the branding of the latter.

The 19-year-old from Wales actually made her single-seater racing debut with Rodin, contesting two Formula Winter Series rounds in March 2024. She then joined JHR Developments in British F4, and came 11th in the standings with four podiums.

Had she not missed a round to debut in F1 Academy with Prema in Singapore she potentially could have ended the season two places higher in the points table. Her year ended by coming 24th in the F4-spec Formula Trophy with Xcel Motorsport.

“It’s great to welcome Ella into the British F4 team this year,” said Rodin’s sporting director Benn Huntingford. “This dual programme will give her a lot of seat time and experience at this level, which will be fantastic for her development. She has shown brilliant promise so far and we are looking forward to seeing her develop this year.”

Piszcyk will be going into his fifth year of single-seater racing, and will be looking to improve on his fifth place in the 2023 British F4 standings when he drove for Hitech GP. That season he claimed two poles that he converted into wins.

Before then he had raced in Formula Ford back home in Australia, and missed out on the 2022 national title by skipping the final round to enter a British F4 test. In 2023 he also came 15th in F4 United Arab Emirates with Hitech, then was Australian F4 champion with AGI Sport last year.

After taking a maximum possible six poles and nine wins from the nine races in Australia, the 18-year-old wrapped up the title at Sepang in Malaysia with a podium and two sixth places. That ended up being the final round, with the planned trip to the UAE in November – where grids would have been shared with FTrophy – being cancelled.

“I am super excited with this opportunity to race with Rodin Motorsport and have the chance to race in the UK this season,” Piszcyk said. “I’m looking forward to developing my skills with such a strong team and can’t wait for the season to start.”

Chris Dittmann Racing has made 15-year-old English karter Charlie Edge its first signing for the 2025 British F4 season, a move which has been anticipated since last September.

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Ella Lloyd has joined McLaren’s Driver Development Programme ahead of a full-time drive in F1 Academy with Rodin Motorsport in 2025.

The 19-year-old impressed in her rookie single-seater campaign in British Formula 4 with JHR Developments this year, scoring four podiums across her final five rounds and finishing 11th in the standings. 

She was inside the top 10 in the points before missing a round to make her F1 Academy debut last month in Singapore with Prema, having been selected as that round’s wildcard entry, finishing ninth and seventh in the two races.

Lloyd only started racing two years ago in Ginetta Junior, having not karted previously, and finished 21st in the standings. She was then runner-up in the Ginetta GT Championship’s GT5 Pro class last year, having scored 10 victories. She made her single-seater debut with Rodin by entering two rounds of the Formula Winter Series at the beginning of this year.

“I’m really excited to be joining the McLaren Driver Development programme as the team’s F1 Academy driver in 2025,” said Lloyd. “It’s an honour to drive for a team that has such a great racing history, and also a long track record for developing talent.

“With McLaren, I now have everything I need to keep developing and pushing the boundaries as a female in motorsport. Thank you to Zak Brown, Stephanie Carlin and the entire McLaren team for their faith in me. I can’t wait to get racing in papaya.”

Lloyd will also take part in Formula E’s maiden women’s test at Valencia next month with McLaren.

“I am pleased to welcome Ella to the McLaren Driver Development programme ahead of her debut as our F1 Academy driver for the 2025 season,” said Stephanie Carlin, who as McLaren’s Director of F1 Business Operations now looks after its junior programme having previously been deputy team principal of the outfit now known as Rodin.

“Ella has great talent and potential and has already cemented herself in the series, performing brilliantly as the wildcard entry in Singapore, so we’re excited to see what she can do with us. We look forward to supporting her development.”

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Photo: Gedlich Racing/Daniel Burgin

Formula Winter Series attracted 38 cars for round three at Motorland Aragon, and race three winner James Egozi was the weekend’s big story.

The 16-year-old American not only returned to Campos Racing’s FWinter Series line-up but was revealed as joining the team for Spanish Formula 4 and joining the Red Bull Junior Team.

Egozi won the 2023 WSK Super Master Series for OK karts then stepped up to cars and came 14th in Italian F4 and won in a F4 Central European Zone cameo.

Rodin Motorsport grew its weekend line-up by signing Preston Lambert and Ella Lloyd. Lambert was fourth in F4 Western in 2023 and will race for Rodin in Spanish F4, while Lloyd – who came 21st in Ginetta Junior in 2022 and second in the Ginetta GT Championship’s GT5 Pro standings last year – will join JHR Developments in British F4.

Two qualifying sessions kicked off the Aragon event, and for much of Q1 it looked like Jack Beeton would take pole. He was usurped with a minute to go by Keanu Al Azhari, who improved further to secure pole by 0.137 seconds.

Andres Cardenas and Gianmarco Pradel were split by 0.002s in third and fourth, and Maciej Gladyz completed the top five. Just 0.922s covered the top 20, and at the bottom of the order Enea Frey and Enzo Tarnvanichkul were black flagged for track limits abuse.

Egozi controlled Q2, setting a 1m59.751s with 10 minutes to go. He later improved to 1m59.738s, taking pole by 0.078s over Al Azhari. Juan Cota and Beeton were third and fourth.

Race one began with Gladyz and Kabir Anurag stalling. Gladysz was hit hard from the left by Carrie Shreiner, with a wheel flying off, and his car was then sent into the path of Ernesto Rivera who had tried swerving off in avoidance. The race was stopped for 25 minutes, and restarted with two laps behind the safety car.

Francisco Macedo spun away eighth place on the second of those laps, and Al Azhari went early on the restart. Cardenas defended hard against Pradel into turn one then fell to 29th by going off, with Beeton and Pradel left chasing Al Azhari.

Maxim Rehm ran fourth, but lacked pace and lost out to Rene Lammers. Both were passed by Lucas Fluxa at the start of lap six, and Rehm ended the lap eighth. Egozi – who started 15th – passed Lammers on lap eight.

Race-ending red flags waved as Al Azhari began lap 10 (due to Nathanael Berreby reversing into the gravel), securing victory for MP Motorsport’s series debutant.

Al Azhari’s second fastest Q1 lap earned him race two pole ahead of Beeton, Gladyz and Kabir Anurag, and he led the first five laps before fellow debutant Beeton got past. On the penultimate lap both were passed by Thomas Strauven, who had taken three laps to rise from sixth to third then bided his time before attacking again. US Racing’s Beeton got back by Al Azhari for second place, and Mikkel Pedersen rose from ninth to finish fourth.

There was drama before race three started as Pradel beached his car in gravel en route to the grid and Peter Bouzinelos’s car was wheeled off it.

Egozi initially led Al Azhari up front. Cota tried diving down the inside of Al Azhari at turn 15 on lap three but went deep and it led to them going three-wide with Beeton. He had the outside line for turn one and took second ahead of Cota, who lost third to Al Azhari at turn five. Akshay Bohra passed both at turn 15, then at turn 16 Cota went to his inside and Al Azhari to his outside. Cota ended up flying over Al Azhari’s car at the apex, ending the latter’s race.

Peebles and Pradel slotted in behind Bohra, then the safety car appeared as Lucas Fluxa spun. Racing resumed on lap eight and the top two broke away until the safety car returned on lap 13 after Lorenzo Castillo’s car shedded bodywork. There was time for one more lap of racing, and Egozi won.

Bohra had held off Peebles and then Pradel for third, and Pedersen beat Gladysz, Cardenas and Lammers in an intense fight for sixth.

Results round-up
Race 1 (8 laps)
1 Keanu Al Azhari Campos Racing 18m24.427s
2 Jack Beeton US Racing +1.107s
3 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +2.013s
4 Lucas Fluxa MP Motorsport +7.649s
5 James Egozi Campos Racing +8.933s
6 Rene Lammers MP Motorsport +9.505s
7 Juan Cota Drivex School +11.979s
8 Thomas Strauven Rodin Motorsport +12.428s
9 Flavio Olivieri Cram Motorsport +13.232s
10 Griffin Peebles MP Motorsport +14.183s
Pole: Al Azhari, 2m00.257s
Fastest lap: Al Azhari, 2m00.425s

Race 2 (13 laps)
1 Strauven 32m03.569s
2 Al Azhari +0.224s
3 Beeton +0.748s
4 Mikkel Pedersen Drivex School +1.159s
5 Kabir Anurag US Racing +2.205s
6 Akshay Bohra US Racing +2.394s
7 Adam Hideg Jenzer Motorsport +3.131s
8 Lin Hodenius Monlau Motorsport +4.599s
9 Douwe Dedecker GRS +4.952s
10 Maciej Gladyz MP Motorsport +6.300s
P: Al Azhari, 2m00.331s
FL: Anurag, 2m01.294s

Race 3 (15 laps)
1 Egozi 34m21.209s
2 Beeton +0.239s
3 Bohra +1.051s
4 Pradel +1.459s
5 Peebles +1.843s
6 Pedersen +3.116s
7 Gladysz +3.223s
8 Andres Cardenas Campos Racing +3.492s
9 Lammers +3.920s
10 Ernesto Rivera Campos Racing +4.039s
P: Egozi, 1m59.738s
FL: Egozi, 2m00.436s

Championship standings
1 Peebles 119   2 Cardenas 112   3 Gladyz 77   4 Matheus Ferreira 75   5 Bohra 72   6 Cota 64   7 Pradel 61   8 Egozi 54   9 Pedersen 53   10 Beeton 51

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