F1 Academy Race 1 in Las Vegas has just come to an end with victory for Doriane Pin, ahead of Nina Gademan and Alisha Palmowski. Here’s how the session unfolded.
The grand finale of the F1 Academy season kicked off in Las Vegas with Race 1, where Nina Gademan started from pole position thanks to the reversed grid used for the opening race of each weekend in the women’s championship. Lining up alongside the Alpine-supported driver should have been Emma Felbermayr, but she was forced to return to the pit lane during the formation lap due to a technical issue with her car. The first major twist arrived almost immediately: on the opening lap, contact between Maya Weug and Tina Hausmann eliminated the Scuderia Ferrari–supported Dutch driver, who is currently fully in contention for the world title.
At the restart, Alba Larsen produced a moment of brilliance: the Danish driver overtook Doriane Pin around the outside, first claiming second place and then snatching the race lead from Nina Gademan. Moments later, however, a spin dropped her all the way down to 15th, allowing Gademan to try to pull away from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team driver.
Meanwhile, Alisha Palmowski was putting pressure on Chloe Chambers. Behind them, Ella Lloyd—running in fifth place—launched an attack on the Red Bull–supported driver, but ran wide and crashed into the barriers, triggering the second Safety Car of the race. After the next restart, Lia Block moved past Aurelia Nobels to take fifth place, while further ahead Palmowski overtook her Red Bull Ford–supported teammate. The latter, however, hit the wall on lap ten, bringing out the third Safety Car.
In the end, it was Doriane Pin who crossed the finish line first, followed by Nina Gademan and Alisha Palmowski. Just off the podium came Aurelia Nobels, then Rachel Robertson, Lia Block, weekend wild card Payton Westcott in seventh, Courtney Crone, Rafaela Ferreira and Nicole Havrda. The next F1 Academy session in Las Vegas is scheduled for 01:20 tomorrow morning, with the final race of the season set to decide the successor to Abbi Pulling as the 2025 champion.
Photo: F1 Academy.
