While the FIA celebrates record-breaking visibility for its all-female series, a technical analysis of the "horsepower gap" suggests the programme may be ceating a demographic cul-de-sac.

I know I sound like a hater because I complain too much, but hear me out. F1 Academy is a recent programme that the FIA introduced in 2023 to increase the visibility of aspiring female drivers and to fund their dreams of making it to Formula One or adjacent motorsport series. There are 7 rounds (14 races) per season, and the driver who wins the most points by the end of it becomes the F1A World Champion. The Champion earns a fully funded seat in the next step, FRECA (Formula Regional European Championship). Seems good, right? Funding? Check. Visibility? Check. But when you look at the architecture of the series, the ladder starts looking a lot more like a treadmill...

The Concession

I will acknowledge that F1A is genuinely valuable. Initiatives like the scholarship programme are necessary investments. Funding is desperately needed, and F1 is finally putting money into the pipeline.

It's a huge deal that all ten Formula One teams are required to sponsor one driver, complete with their livery and mentorship. It connects young female drivers directly to the bigger names, resources, and engineering minds in the sport. It's the highest level of validation a junior series could get. Plus, the fact that F1 Academy races as a support event on the F1 calendar is massive. It puts these drivers in front of thousands of live spectators and a global broadcast audience of millions every single race weekend. They are driving on tracks like Jeddah, Miami, and Zandvoort - exposure that simply isn't available to regular F4 drivers. This is the key to creating the role models and fanbase necessary to drive long-term change.

This high visibility is amplified by their own Netflix docuseries, F1: The Academy.

Beyond the actual racing, F1A is investing in the future with the 'Discover Your Drive' programmes. These grassroots initiatives, like the karting events, are designed to actively encourage young girls (6-18) to even try motorsport, giving them 'the first foot in the door' and working to significantly grow the shallow talent pool that we currently have. F1 Academy's goal is to build a whole new base for the pyramid.

I. The Philosophical Flaw: Segregation is Limitation

This is where the good intention hit a wall. In a sport where physical strength is not the primary barrier (unlike, say, football or boxing), the decision to create a separate-but-equal series is fundamentally flawed

A. WORSENING THE DIVIDE: THE "NOT GOOD ENOUGH" NARRATIVE: The FIA's benchmark for gender equality in motorsport should be mixed competition. By creating a women-only F4, F1 Academy risks reinforcing the outdated - and sexist - idea that female drivers are "not fast enough" to compete with the boys.

The moment you separate the category, you create two distinct classes: the real (mixed-gender) ladder and the alternative (female-only) ladder. This effectively puts a disclaimer on any achievement made within the segregated series. The natural, if unfair, question critics ask is: "Yes, she won, but who did she beat?" This distracts from the monumental effort and skill required by the drivers and can actually make the divide worse.

B. CREATING A CEILING, NOT A LADDER: The true goal of any feeder series is to push the best talent into the next, higher mixed-tier championship. F1A, however, acts less like a ladder and more like a safe, padded room right before the final hurdle.

Drivers spend their most crucial development years in a separate series where the competitive field is naturally limited. If you have 10,000 boys in karting and only 100 girls, you are never going to have the same competitive intensity and depth on the female-only grid. The top talents, like Marta García, Abbi Pulling, and the recent F1A Champion, Doriane Pin, are certainly excellent, but the rest of the grid doesn't always push them to the limits required for the next step.

C. THE TRUE BENCHMARK: THE LAP TIME: Motorsport is a pure meritocracy defined by data: the stopwatch.

The only test that matters for a driver aiming for F1 is how they stack up against the best male and female drivers on track at the same time in the same conditions. Isolating women doesn't provide this necessary proof of speed. It means F1 teams and sponsors have to mentally add a hypothetical "segregation tax" to the performance metrics of an F1 Academy Champion before they feel comfortable funding their move to the actual high-stakes mixed-gendered FRECA or f3 grids.

The philosophical issues are bad enough, but they are compounded by the technical choices F1A has made, which brings us to the structural problems.

II. The Structural Flaw: Flawed Efficacy and Lost Time

Look, I'm not a car nerd, and I don't pretend to spend my weekends studying gear ratios (#exposed) but I do have eyes and a stopwatch. You don't need a PhD in aerodynamics to see that the F1A champions are hitting a brick wall the second they leave the series

The philosophical issue of segregation is made even worse when we consider F1A's technical structure, which creates a competitive environment that doesn't prepare drivers for the real feeder series ladder.

A. THE CAR PROBLEMS: F4-SPEC VS. FRECA DEMANDS: F1 Academy uses the T421 Chassis, which is essentially an F4-spec car powered by a 1.4-liter, 4-cylinder engine delivering about 174 horsepower. It's important to note that these cars have modified front and rear wings, which makes the aero package unique. Some people may argue that these cars may even be slower than F4 cars due to less track time and slightly less aggressive setups. Quoting Max Verstappen himself,

"The cars they drive are far too slow. If you ever want to get them in Formula One, it really has to go to a higher level. It's nice that girls are now sponsored by Formula One teams, but what do we actually help them with? There is no next step for them now. For example, the gap to a Formula Four car is already too big."

The Problem: The championship title offers a fully-funded leap to the Formula Regional European Championship (FRECA). The cars used in FRECA are a massive step up. While technical specs vary, these cars are much more powerful, have significantly more downforce, and impose far greater physical demands (higher G-forces and tougher braking and steering).

The Disconnect: Training a driver for 2 years in an F4-spec car and then throwing them straight into a Formula Regional fight is like training a runner for a half-marathon and then forcing them to run a full marathon against professionals. The F1A car does not provide the necessary mechanical feel, technical complexity, or raw speed required to make that leap competitive.

To put it into perspective: an F1A car has 174 hp, while a FRECA car has 270 hp. That is nearly a 100-horsepower jump overnight. Not to mention the aero, the FRECA Tatuus T-318 is physically wider, heavier, and has significantly more downforce. We're asking these girls to jump from a car that feels like a road car with wings to a heavy, high-speed car that requires massive upper-body and arm strength, and a completely different driving style.

Technical Spec	F1A (T421)	FRECA (T-318)
Power Output	174 HP	270 HP (+55%)
Engine	1.4L Turbo	1.8L Turbo
Aero	Modified F4	High-Downforce
Steering	Standard	Heavy / High-G

WAIT!! Isn't an F1A car basically the same as an F4 car? Then how is it harder to make the jump to FRECA from F1A than from F4? On paper, yes, the cars are the same, and yes, it doesn't make sense. Both F1A and standard championships (like Italian or Spanish F4) use the same Tatuus chassis, but in racing, the car is only half the story.

In a standard F4 series, you are on a grid of 30+ drivers, fighting 15-18-year-old phenoms who are on track doing thousands of kilometres of constant collective testing. It is essentially a meat grinder that forces you to learn how to handle dirty air and aggressive wheel-to-wheel combat in a massive pack. F1 Academy, because it follows the F1 calendar, has much stricter limits on testing and track time. You are racing in a smaller field (15-18 cars) where the competition depth just isn't the same. Winning in F1A is like being the best player in a small-town league, while winning in Italian F4 is like being the best player in the Champions League (I don't watch football, but stay with me now...) The car is the same, but the training isn't.

Even Doriane Pin, arguably the most ready talent we've seen, is having to juggle multiple series just to keep her sharp edge, which a male peer in the same position wouldn't have to do.

C. THE WASTED TIME ISSUE: A driver's career in the single-seater ladder is a brutal race against time and age. Most successful male drivers move from F4 to FRECA/Formula Regional to F3 and F2 on a rapid schedule, often completing the ladder by their early twenties. F1A drivers are limited to spending two full seasons in the series. This means they are potentially spending two valuable development years learning to master a lower-spec, segregated car, all while their male peers are gaining crucial experience in the hyper-competitive, mixed-gender Formula Regional series.

The result is a gap created by this wasted time and the lesser machinery becomes almost impossible to close when they finally join the mixed field.

Even a generational talent like Doriane Pin proves the gap. While she attempted a dual campaign in 2024, the physical and mental demands of jumping between the F4-spec F1A car and the much faster FRECA car were immense. She eventually withdrew from FRECA to focus on the F1A title. Even our best talent is being encouraged to prioritize a segregated title over integrated development. She's 21 now, and she and Mercedes are still deciding what to do with her fully funded seat. In a sport where teams are looking for the next 17-year-old superstar (thanks to Max Verstappen), F1A has her running against a clock that's already at midnight.

C. THE MARTA GARCÍA CASE: If the F1 Academy worked as intended, its champion would be immediately competitive in the next tier. However, the first champion's performance proves the inadequacy of the structural bridge.

Marta García dominated the inaugural 2023 F1 Academy season and earned the fully-funded seat in the 2024 FRECA season. Competing in FRECA against top international male and female talent, García found herself far down the field. She finished 28th overall (with a 14th-place personal best) and with zero points in the championship. This isn't a knock on García's talent; she proved her dominance in F1A. It's a knock on the car and the series structure, which failed a proven champion for the actual competitive demands of the next step.

After her tough FRECA season and lack of single-seater opportunities, García moved more into Endurance/GT racing with Iron Dames. It's a happy ending for her career, but it's a failure for F1 Academy. The "F1 ladder" they promised her led to a dead end, and she only found her footing again by returning to the integrated world of endurance racing. By the way, she managed to podium at Spa 2025! And won multiple races in the Ligier European Series in 2024 with the Iron Dames.

D. THE VISIBILITY ISSUE: STILL NOT PRIME TIME: While the concession section noted that the visibility is improved, it's still not enough. F1A races are primarily shown on F1TV and YouTube, and only occasionally highlighted on the main international F1 broadcast.

The drivers are running on F1 tracks, but they are still being treated as a secondary product, sustaining the pattern of "invisible progress." Their male peers racing in F2 and F3, while also supporting series, have far greater dedicated broadcast time, ensuring their talent is seen by the sponsors and the global media.

III. The successful alternative: the Iron Dames

We've established the structural and philosophical issues with F1 Academy: segregation is limiting, and the F4-spec car is inadequate preparation. But before we write off the idea of dedicated support for women in motorsport, we must look at the true benchmark: Iron Dames.

The Iron Dames project, founded by Deborah Mayer in 2018, is a real-world, successful counterpoint to F1A's segregated model, despite the massive visibility gap.

A. THE PHILOSOHPY: INTEGREATION VS ISOLATION: This is the biggest difference. The Iron Dames' core mission is not to create a separate women's series, but to prove that all-female teams and drivers can compete and win against the best mixed-gender (though almost always male) teams in the world.

Iron Dames' goal is to achieve victories in premier international championships like the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and European Le Mans Series (ELMS), while F1 Academy's goal is to achieve victories in a segregated series. The philosophical validation provided by Iron Dames is instant and impeachable. When they win or podium their class in a WEC race - as they have done multiple times - that victory stands on the same level as every other team's. There is no asterisk; there is only meritocracy proven by the stopwatch.

Iron Dames isn't just a project; it's a winning team. They became the first all-female lineup to win a race in the FIA World Endurance Championship (Bahrain 2023). They didn't win a 'women's trophy,' they beat the best GTE drivers on the planet, including ex-F1 pros. That's the difference: Iron Dames produces winners, while F1A produces graduates.

THE COMPETITION LEVEL: The drivers supported by Iron Dames are constantly thrown into the deep end, driving powerful, high-downforce GT cars. In F1A, drivers compete against a limited talent pool in an entry-level F4 car, minimizing the pressure and competitive intensity required to forge an F1-calibre driver. Meanwhile, Iron Dames drivers, including former F1A competitor Doriane Pin, have proven that they can excel under the immense pressure of 6-hour endurance races and the 24 hours of Le Mans, sharing the track with F1 refugees and world-class professionals. Pin's dual success, dominating F1 Academy in 2025 and simultaneously being named WEC Revelation of the Year in 2023, directly demonstrates that the highest-level, mixed-gender competition is the superior testing ground.

THE INVESTMENT MODEL: FUNDING THE FRONT ROW: Both initiatives rely on massive investment, but Iron Dames uses the money strategically. Iron Dames funds top women directly into top-spec, mix-gender seats (WEC, ELMS, IMSA), where the drivers are immediately fighting for overall podiums in top series. Meanwhile, F1A funds an entirely separate championship infrastructure (cars, logistics, running costs), where drivers are fighting for a fully-funded seat in the next year, where they often struggle.

I know what you're thinking, "But the Iron Dames are literally pulling out of WEC in 2026 because of money!!" And yeah, that's exactly my point.

Iron dames proved that talent is there (they literally won races against the best men in the world), but because they are a private project, they are vulnerable to the brutal financial reality of racing. Meanwhile, F1A has the infinite pockets of F1. Imagine if F1 took that "infinite" money and stability and applied it to the Iron Dames' philosophy. Instead of paying to run a whole separate, lower-tier series, F1 could be the permanent financial backbone that puts women in the top seats of F3, F2, and WEC. We don't need a 'safe' separate series; we need F1's massive wealth to secure a permanent spot for women in the actual competition.

F1 is spending millions to build a separate stage, while the women who have already proven they can win on the main stage (Iron Dames) are struggling for private funding. Why is F1 building a new house instead of paying the rent for the women already in the old one?

IV. The Solution: Integration over Isolation

"Ali, you've been complaining about F1 Academy for over 2k words... How about you go change the system?" Well, I can't, LOL. I'm just some teen on the internet. But it feels wrong to just critique and leave it at that. F1A has a huge room for improvement, and they've just finished their third season - they're very new. So... What's the fix? If F1A has the money but the wrong philosophy, and Iron Dames has the right philosophy but is struggling with the money, the answer is obvious: F1 needs to adopt the Iron Dames' strategy and use its massive wealth to fund women directly into the feeder series.

A. REDIRECT INVESTMENT: Instead of spending millions to run an entire separate championship, with its own cars, logistics, and staff, F1 should use that budget to secure seats for the top 5-10 female talents in the existing F3, Formula Regional, and F2 grids. Imagine if the money currently used to run 15 F1A cars was used to buy 5 "Golden Tickets" at top-tier teams like Prema, ART, or Hitech in the mixed-gender championships.

B. STOP WASTING TIME: A driver's career is a race against the clock (ha ha). We need to stop the two-year limit in F1A and get these women into high-power machinery as early as possible. If a driver is good enough, they shouldn't be shelved in an F4-spec car for 24 months. They should be in a FRECA seat immediately, learning to fight the same physics and the same rivals they'll face if they ever reach F1.

C. THE "IRON DAMES" SAFETY NET: The recent news about Iron Dames withdrawing from WEC in 2026 is a wake-up call. It shows that even the most talented women are at the mercy of private funding. F1 is a multi-billion-dollar machine. It shouldn't be funding a "girls' club" support race; it should be acting as the permanent financial backbone for female integration. If F1 wants a female driver on the grid, they need to stop building a separate room and start paying for the best seats in the main house.

Final Synthesis:

At the end of the day, F1 Academy is a band-aid on a much deeper wound. While the visibility and grassroots programmes are amazing, the series itself creates a glass ceiling under the guise of a ladder. We don't need a separate championship to prove women can race. We need the funding to ensure that they are in the same cars, on the same grid, proving it against the same people every single weekend. The goal shouldn't be to find the "best female driver," it should be to find the best driver, period. And you do that only by letting them race together.

The argument that women need a separate series because they wouldn’t get seats otherwise is a flaw of the existing ladder, not a justification for segregation. If the solution to discrimination is isolation, then the system itself has already failed. (That's a lotta -tions)

So... what do you guys think? Is the "separate series" actually helping, or is it just a marketing tool for F1? Let me know lol!
I've linked this to my Spacehey for comment discussions. You can let me know there!