Prema driver Doriane Pin was quick to assert her dominance over the F1 Academy field in Jeddah, while Rodin Motorsport’s Abbi Pulling did the same in Miami. Speaking to selected media including Feeder Series ahead of the third round Barcelona, several F1 Academy drivers predicted a more competitive weekend.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Barcelona marks the first and only weekend this season when F1 Academy will compete alongside Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula 3, and there’s only so much track time to go around.  

That means F1 Academy drivers get only one practice session ahead of qualifying and the two races, as was also the case at the season opener in Jeddah.

Although there’s limited weekend running, the drivers previously had three days of pre-season testing at the circuit in February. 

“It’s a shame that we have just one free practice of 40 minutes, but I think all the drivers know this track really well … so I think the times will be super close here. F2 and F3 have not too much time on track, so it’s a good practice for us to do the same as them,” Campos driver Nerea Martí told Feeder Series. 

Championship leader Pulling agreed that the compressed schedule and prior testing opportunity would bring more parity.

“Everyone’s only got one free practice and we all did the official test at the start of the season, so no one’s at a disadvantage or more advantage than the other,” she said. “It makes it a bit closer, and you’ve just got to be a bit more on top of it.” 

Although individual series’ schedules may be compressed, the track itself sees more single-seater running. There are 17 sessions across the four formulae across the weekend, amounting to more than 13 hours of track time. The format resembles the days when W Series raced alongside F1, F2 and F3.

Martí, Pulling and Pin all saw sharing the track with these series as a positive.

“The grip on track is different when we have more formulae on track … I prefer it, to be honest. I would like to do more races with them,” said Martí, who sits sixth in the F1 Academy points.

“You can learn a little bit from them, ask the drivers how the track’s evolving,” Pulling added. 

Mercedes junior Pin said, “Now that there is F2 and F3 this weekend there is much more to learn. It is quite exciting because there are many more races to watch and there’s always something to learn and take from it… so it is very interesting for us.” 

Barcelona and Zandvoort are the only two circuits to feature on both the 2023 and 2024 calendars. Alongside Paul Ricard, Barcelona was also one of just two circuits to have both qualifying sessions under last year’s format decided by less than a tenth of a second. What does Pulling expect to see this time around? 

“It’s definitely going to be really close. It’s probably going to be the closest race and qualifying and weekend as a whole for the season.”  

Last year, Alpine-backed Pulling had one of her strongest weekends at the Spanish circuit, finishing second in the first race, third in the second race, and fourth in the third race. Pulling also took her best result of the 2022 W Series season at Barcelona with second, 0.526 seconds behind winner Jamie Chadwick. Spanish racer Martí has raced at the circuit as far back as 2019 but has yet to take a podium there in seven single-seater races.

Header photo credit: Campos Racing