Doriane Pin took her second win of the F1 Academy season in the first and only race in Miami this weekend. The second race, which was meant to take place Sunday morning, was cancelled because of poor weather conditions. Feeder Series reviews what happened over the weekend.

By Kaylene Lau 

The Miami International Autodrome hosted the third round of F1 Academy this weekend. This was the series’ second trip to the circuit after Rodin’s Abbi Pulling dominated the entire weekend last season. 

Practice and qualifying 

Prema’s Pin was fastest in practice session one, setting a lap time of 1:59.153. Campos’ Alisha Palmowski was second fastest, 0.339s behind Pin. MP’s Maya Weug set the third-fastest time of the session with a 1:59.575. 

In the second practice session, championship leader Weug set the fastest time of the session with a time of 1:58.545, putting her 0.279s ahead of Campos’ Chloe Chambers. Prema’s Nina Gademan rounded out the top three with a 1:58.940. 

Yellow flags came out early on in the second practice session after wild card entry Ava Dobson locked up at Turn 1 and hit the rear of Lia Block’s car. Dobson was given a three-place grid penalty for both races for causing the collision. 

Campos’ Chambers narrowly took pole ahead of Palmowski and Pin in wet weather conditions. Chambers’ time, a 2:00.458, was only 0.018s faster than Palmowski’s and 0.071s faster than Pin’s. 

Chambers and Palmowski were the first two drivers to set laps in the session, which featured frantic activity early on as the rain began to fall. Though it ceased with 10 minutes left in the session, the order remained unchanged after the first laps. Championship leader Weug qualified 10th, while wild card entry Dobson qualified 15th. 

Rodin’s Emma Felbermayr qualified eighth, giving her reverse-grid pole for the first race. 

Race 1 

Felbermayr maintained her lead at the start of the race, but there were plenty of changes behind. Campos’ Rafaela Ferreira and Rodin’s Ella Lloyd both locked up heading into Turn 1, with Lloyd hitting the rear of Ferreira’s car and spearing towards the barriers. Ferreira, who started second, dropped to seventh after the collision, while Block was next to Lloyd as the collision happened and was forced to take avoiding action, dropping her to 12th. Lloyd was later given a three-place grid drop for Sunday’s race. 

Pin, who had started from sixth on the grid, made her way up to second amidst the first-corner carnage and nearly overtook Felbermayr for the lead before the safety car came out later in the lap. After it was withdrawn at the end of lap two, Pin and Felbermayr battled for the race lead. Pin briefly took first down the inside at Turn 17 before Felbermayr took the place back into the next braking zone at Turn 1. But on lap five, Pin made the overtake stick after Felbermayr went wide at Turn 1. The Austrian dropped to fourth as ART’s Aurelia Nobels and Palmowski also capitalised on her mistake. 

Felbermayr, now off the podium, was then passed by Chambers and Weug after a three-way battle during which the Austrian driver sustained damage to the upper nose assembly of her car. Ahead of them, Palmowski overtook Nobels around the outside of Turn 11 for second on lap six, with Chambers also chasing down the Brazilian driver before the safety car was brought out for the second time on lap eight. 

That deployment was for an incident the previous lap involving Joanne Ciconte and Chloe Chong, who were battling for 13th along with Nicole Havrda. Ciconte, on the outside entering Turn 11, was hit by Chong, who had Havrda attempting an overtake on her inside. Ciconte’s car required retrieval after stopping, while Chong headed to the pit lane to retire the car. Havrda left the incident unscathed and continued in 13th. 

The safety car period ended on lap 10 of 13, and Pin maintained her lead at the restart. Chambers made an overtake on Nobels at Turn 12 en route to securing her fourth podium finish of the season. The Brazilian driver faced pressure not long after from fellow Ferrari junior Weug, who overtook her for fourth at the same corner complex where Chambers passed her one lap before. 

Nobels then fell into the clutches of teammate Block, who overtook her for fifth at the Turn 11–12 complex on the penultimate lap. The American gave the place back as she had left the track while making the move, but she regained the place with a subsequent pass at the same spot on the final lap. Prema’s Nina Gademan also overtook Nobels for sixth at Turn 17. 

Block was later handed a five-second time penalty for a previous incident in which she left the track while overtaking Prema’s Tina Hausmann, dropping her from fifth to 10th, outside of the points-scoring positions. 

Out front, Pin took her second win of the season by 0.423 seconds over Palmowski, who finished second while Chambers finished third.

Early leader Felbermayr finished 15th after being shown the black and orange flag and forced to pit for repairs during the safety car period. 

Race 2 

With heavy rain falling on the circuit Sunday afternoon, multiple formation laps were held behind the safety car. Felbermayr, Havrda and Lloyd all went off track in the slippery conditions. 

The red flag came out to suspend the race in the hope that the rain would ease. But as conditions were not set to improve anytime soon, the race was called off. 

With Sunday’s race being cancelled, no points were awarded, but F1 Academy confirmed that Chambers would be awarded two points for securing pole position. 

With five races run, Weug maintained her lead in the standings with 64 points, with second-placed Pin only one point behind. Chambers rounds out the top three with 55 points as her Campos team continue to lead the teams’ standings.

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Chloe Chambers, 2:00.458	Alisha Palmowski, +0.018s	Doriane Pin, +0.071s
Race 1 (13 laps)	Doriane Pin, 28:32.874	Alisha Palmowski, +0.423s	Chloe Chambers, +1.739s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Maya Weug, 64	Campos Racing, 108
P2	Doriane Pin, 63	MP Motorsport, 94
P3	Chloe Chambers, 55	Prema Racing, 88
P4	Alisha Palmowski, 44	Rodin Motorsport, 34
P5	Alba Hurup Larsen, 28	ART Grand Prix, 5
P6	Ella Lloyd, 23	Hitech, 1
P7	Tina Hausmann, 13
P8	Nina Gademan, 12
P9	Emma Felbermayr, 10
P10	Rafaela Ferreira, 9

Header photo credit: Jiří Křenek / Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Limited