After just six races, Abbi Pulling looks to be running away with the 2024 F1 Academy title. However, the path to the teams’ championship seems much less clear, with only 30 points separating the top three teams. Feeder Series takes a look at how each team is faring nearly halfway through the season. 

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Rodin Motorsport

One of only two teams made up of three returning drivers, teams’ championship leader Rodin’s 2024 campaign has been a tale of two seasons. On the one hand, drivers’ championship leader Abbi Pulling is flying, finishing on the top two steps of the podium in every race so far. Pulling, whose partnership with Rodin extends to British F4, has been quick to praise the team for their setups and support. The Alpine junior accounts for 147 of Rodin’s 176 points. 

On the other, the season has yet to click for Rodin’s drivers further down the field. Lola Lovinfosse is currently 14th in the standings. She was involved in incidents in both Jeddah and Miami, including a crash that led to a fractured wrist. Her return from injury in Barcelona was her cleanest weekend yet, though she only managed to collect two points. 

Jessica Edgar has had a marginally more successful season, with a best finish of fourth in Jeddah. However, her recent races have been marred by errors; she was penalised for a false start in the first race and leaving the track and gaining an advantage in the second. She also struggled with tyre management in the second race, plummeting down through the order to finish last. Although she’s shown promise through the season, both Edgar and Lovinfosse will need to step up their game if Rodin hopes to maintain its teams’ championship lead. 

Campos Racing

Campos had an incredibly successful home race, leaving Barcelona with the most points of any team. The result continues Campos’ upward trend, scoring more points with each weekend. Campos has the most powerful 1-2 punch of any team, with Chloe Chambers and Nerea Martí’s consistent results having them running third and fourth in the standings respectively. 

Barcelona featured Chambers’ first F1 Academy win, which she rounded out with another podium. Hometown hero Martí also had a successful weekend, finishing second in race one and fourth in race two. Both drivers are improving throughout the season, and their increasingly regular podiums make Campos a serious contender for the teams’ championship. 

Prema Racing

Despite starting off strong, Prema has been trending in the opposite direction. The reigning teams’ champions looked dominant in Jeddah, taking three podiums and an additional on track victory. However, they’ve struggled to match their success since then. Even in Miami, where second-placed driver in the standings Doriane Pin finished on the podium twice, Prema struggled with their pace. 

Some of Prema’s declining showing seems to come from setup decisions. In Miami, Maya Weug visibly struggled with straight line speed. Pin did as well in Barcelona; despite a tow from ART’s Bianca Bustamante, Pin’s Prema car was only able to manage 199kph to Bustamante’s 204kph. 

Driver errors and bad luck have also hampered Prema’s progress. In Miami, Tina Hausmann was involved in collisions in both races, finishing neither. In Barcelona, Weug had an uncharacteristically difficult weekend, qualifying at the back of the grid and causing a collision in the first race, leaving with no points. Pin, consistently Prema’s top driver, struggled to get off the line in both races; despite showing strong racecraft, her poor starts cost the team valuable points. 

MP Motorsport

Maintaining their entire 2023 lineup this year, MP was expected to be one of the stronger teams. However, three rounds in, they are 100 points behind teams’ championship-leading Rodin. After taking their first podium in Barcelona, MP appears to be on the up again, but time will tell whether it’s too late to challenge for the title. 

Red Bull Racing supported Hamda Al Qubaisi is the highest-placed returning driver in the series, but her season started slower than she might’ve liked. Between Jeddah and Miami, Al Qubaisi increased her qualifying pace, and did so again in Barcelona. Combined with a decisive move on Martí, she was able to take her first podium this year in the second race.

Although Hamda Al Qubaisi has managed points in every race, the same has not been true for her teammates. Red Bull’s Emely De Heus was the only full time driver without points through the first two rounds, which she rectified in Barcelona bringing her to twelfth in the standings. Meanwhile, VCARB’s Amna Al Qubaisi managed three eighth-place finishes in the first four races, before being taken out by Weug in Barcelona in race one and failing to score points in race two.

Although MP’s pace is more apparent than it was earlier in the season, the team needs all three drivers succeeding at once if they want to climb up the order. 

ART Grand Prix

ART, last in the teams’ standings with 73 points, face a similar challenge to MP; while they are slowly trending upwards, their drivers don’t show the same pace or consistency as the top teams. Although McLaren’s Bianca Bustamante has scored points in every race, she hasn’t been able to challenge for podiums as frequently as the other frontrunners. 

Rounding out the team are Aurelia Nobels and Lia Block, the two youngest competitors in the series. Block’s first year in single-seaters started out slowly, with incidents taking her out of points contention in both Jeddah races. However, the Williams driver has scored three straight points finishes, including a personal best sixth-place finish in the second Barcelona race. Block’s improving pace is a good sign for both her own career and ART’s ability to make strides in the teams’ championship. 

Nobels, on the other hand, finished seventh in the first race in Jeddah but has failed to score points since. The Brazilian driver will need to make her presence known if ART are to improve on their current position. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency