PREVIEW: F1 Academy takes to Saudi Arabia for Round 2

F1 Academy is back this weekend (April 18-20) for Round 2 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Doriane Pin and Abbi Pulling took the race wins in 2024, but who will race to victory this year?

Round 1 of the season took place in Shanghai in March, with Alisha Palmowski winning her maiden race in Race 1 and Doriane Pin winning Race 2 for her first victory of the season.

F1 Academy has 18 drivers each race weekend this season, with a Wild Card driver competing each weekend. Round 1 in Shanghai saw the 2025 drivers take to the track for the first time across a race weekend.

Shanghai recap

Round 1 of the season took place on 21-23 March at the Shanghai International Circuit in China. Shi Wei became the first Chinese driver to race in the series, competing in the race weekend as the first Wild Card driver of the season.

Unlike the previous seasons, Shanghai was the first race weekend with the new format of 18 cars racing instead of 15. Shanghai also saw the return of the reverse grid for Race 1, with the top eight drivers from qualifying reversed on the grid with P9 to P18 starting from the position they qualified in.

Doriane Pin, Maya Weug, Alisha Palmowski and Chloe Chambers were the stand-out performers from Shanghai, with Chambers and Weug both taking podiums in Race 1 and 2. Rookie Alba Larsen finished fourth in Race 2, scoring 14 points over the weekend. Fellow rookie Emma Felbermayr scored ten points with a fifth-place finish in Race 2.

Read our complete round-up of the F1 Academy Round 1 in Shanghai.

Jeddah in-season testing

Between events, F1 Academy ran three days of in-season testing (April 4-6) at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

The six teams together completed 2,891 laps over the days for a total of 16 hours in sessions in the afternoon sun and under the floodlights in preparation for the race weekend. Each car had seven new sets of slick tyres.

Ella Lloyd was the fastest driver on the first day of in-season testing with a lap time of 2:05.367, which she set with five minutes to go in the afternoon session, just ahead of Tina Hausmann by 0.033s, with Pin in third.

Palmowski topped the timesheets on day two with a 2:05.040 lap time. Meug finished in second place and Chambers in third. Nina Gademan was taken to King Abdullah Medical Complex after an incident for precautionary checks. She was later released with the all-clear but didn’t participate in day three.

Weug set the fastest time with a 2:05.405 on the final day, finishing a tenth ahead of Chambers in second place and Lloyd in third.

F1 Academy race weekend format

The 2025 season saw a change to the weekend format, which is now split into three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with up to two practice sessions lasting up to 40 minutes taking place on Friday. A 30-minute qualifying session will take place on either Friday or Saturday, depending on the number of practice sessions allocated.

Saturday will host Race 1 and after this season's reform of the Sporting Regulations, this will be a reverse grid race.

The reverse grid race means that the top eight drivers from qualifying will be reversed on the grid, while the drivers that finish between P9 and P18 will start from the position they qualify in. In this race, only the first eight drivers will earn points and the driver who records the fastest lap and finishes in the top eight will score an extra point.

Race 1 points allocation:

• P1 - 10 points

• P2 - 8 points

• P3 - 6 points

• P4 - 5 points

• P5 - 4 points

• P6 - 3 points

• P7 - 2 points

• P8 - 1 point

Race 2 has no changes from previous seasons, with drivers starting from the position that they qualified in. The first 10 drivers to cross the chequered flag will earn points on a sliding scale from 25 points to the winner and down to one point to the driver finishing in P10.

The driver who earns Pole Position for Race 2 will earn two extra points. The driver who sets the fastest lap will earn an additional point if they finish the race within the top 10.

Race 2 points allocation:

• P1 - 25 points

• P2 - 18 points

• P3 - 15 points

• P4 - 12 points

• P5 - 10 points

• P6 - 8 points

• P7 - 6 points

• P8 - 4 points

• P9 - 2 points

• P10 - 1 point

What’s the schedule for the race weekend?

Round 2 starts on Friday, 18 April, with the Free Practice (12:05pm) and Qualifying (7:30pm) sessions. This year’s qualifying session will take place at 9:30pm local time under the floodlights.

Race 1 will take place on Saturday, 19 April at 1:20pm and Race 2 on Sunday, 20 April at 1:05pm.

All times are in British Summer Time (BST).

Who is the wild card entry?

Farah Alyouseff will make her F1 Academy debut in Round 2 of the season as the Wild Card entry for the Jeddah race weekend. Farah will be behind the wheel of car number four, MUHRA car, operated by Hitech TGR.

Farah is a rising talent in Saudi motorsport and was crowned the Saudi Women’s Karting Champion in 2022. She also has experience racing in the F4 Middle East Championship and completed three days of testing in-season at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in an F1 Academy car.

"Racing as a Wild Card entry in the F1 ACADEMY on home soil here in Jeddah is truly a dream come true,” the Saudi driver said. “Motorsport has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and to line up alongside some of the most talented young drivers in the world at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit is an incredibly proud moment.”

Everything you need to know about the Jeddah Corniche Circuit

F1 Academy first raced at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in 2024 as part of the Formula 1 Grand Prix race weekend.

Race 1 and Race 2 will both cover 80.262 km over 13 laps. The circuit length is 6.174km, with 27 corners. In 2024, Pin set the fastest lap time of 2:03.472.

The Jeddah Corniche Circuit is located on the Corniche, a 30 km coastal resort area just outside the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. The circuit is very fast, with average speeds of around 250km/h in a Formula 1 car and has the most corners on the calendar with 27 quick, sinuous bends.

2025 Season Standings After Round 1

1. Doriane Pin               31 points

2. Maya Weug                26 points

3. Chloe Chambers       24 points

4. Alisha Palmowski     18 points

5. Alba Larsen               14 points

6. Emma Felbermayr   10 points

7. Ella Lloyd                    9 points

8. Rafaela Ferreira        8 points

9. Lia Block                    2 points

10.  Avia Anagnostiadis   1 point

11.  Nina Gademan          1 point

12.  Chloe Chong

13.  Courtney Crone

14.  Tina Hausmann

15.  Joanne Ciconte

16.  Shi Wei

17.  Nicole Havrda

18.  Aurelia Nobels

The F1 Academy qualifying session, Race 1 and Race 2 throughout the season can be streamed on F1 Academy’s YouTube, X Channels, F1 TV and Sky Sports F1.

All images are credited to F1 Academy Limited.