In her debut year in single-seaters, Sauber-backed Emma Felbermayr currently sits ninth in the F1 Academy standings with one win. Feeder Series caught up with the Rodin Motorsport driver in Montréal just before she took her maiden win to talk about her impressive rookie season so far. 

By Kaylene Lau

Having stepped up from karting over the winter, 18-year-old Felbermayr is one of the youngest and least experienced drivers on the F1 Academy grid this year.

Felbermayr competed in multiple karting championships at the KZ2 level last year, including the WSK Super Master Series, the FIA Karting European Championship and the FIA Karting World Cup. She told Feeder Series that stepping up to single-seaters was a ‘spontaneous decision’.

“The final decision was in November last year, so I had to do a lot more over the winter, but I didn’t have as much time because I go to school,” she said.

To prepare for her single-seater debut, Felbermayr raced with Rodin in the first two rounds of the Eurocup-4 Spanish Winter Championship, with a best finish of 13th in the final race at Jerez. 

The Austrian driver said that her initial adjustment to single-seaters was ‘really tough’ and that the beginning of her F1 Academy season ‘wasn’t perfect’. 

In the opening round at Shanghai, Felbermayr put together an impressive lap to qualify seventh, which granted her a front-row start for the reverse-grid race. A collision with Tina Hausmann at the end of the race meant Felbermayr finished only 11th after being on course for sixth, but on Sunday, Felbermayr made up two places from her starting position to finish fifth.

“It was a real challenge, and the season didn’t start off too bad,” Felbermayr said. “It was quite promising, [I made] some mistakes, I will do some mistakes still, but I think for the experience that I have, so far it’s not too bad. I’m still progressing every race, as we’ve seen already – quite [a lot of] improvement from Shanghai in the beginning to Miami.” 

Felbermayr’s qualifying performance has been consistent so far. She qualified eighth in both Jeddah and Miami, meaning that on both weekends, she started from reverse-grid pole for Saturday’s race. Felbermayr’s best qualifying performance came in Montréal, where she qualified fifth.

Although she started from the front in race one in both Miami and Jeddah, Felbermayr failed to score points in either of those races, finishing ninth and 15th respectively.

Reflecting on her races so far, she highlighted racecraft as something she ‘really [had] to work on’. 

“Being consistent is probably the most important point. I think being fast on one lap is not too bad. I miss some tenths, but that’s normal for the beginning,” Felbermayr said. “But racecraft, I’m a little disappointed so far. I hope I can improve myself because I thought I have learnt quite a lot in karting, but it’s still something different to what I did before.” 

A highlight of Felbermayr’s season so far was her impressive overtake on Doriane Pin, the current championship leader, in race one at Miami. Pin had briefly taken the race lead from Felbermayr on lap three at Turn 17, but the Rodin driver reclaimed it with a daring move down the inside of Turn 1 on the next lap.

“It was definitely a good move,” Felbermayr said. “[It] helped me to create more self-confidence, so I know now that I can overtake. I then still lost some places because I made a mistake, but that’s just something I have to learn and to improve from them, from the mistakes.” 

Heading into the Montréal weekend, which featured three races following the postponement of Miami’s second race to that round, Felbermayr said she was seeking another top-five finish.

Felbermayr crossed the line third in an incident-filled race one, but she was disqualified post-race after her car was found to have been underweight. 

But another bold move from Felbermayr, much like the one she made on Pin in Miami, helped her secure her first win in cars in the reverse-grid race later that day. She dove down the inside of Nina Gademan at Turn 9 on the last lap to take the lead of the race. 

Race three proved to be unlucky for her, as she was involved in multiple collisions. The first was with Gademan, who sent Felbermayr spinning as they battled for fifth on lap eight. Then on lap 14, Felbermayr hit Courtney Crone’s car approaching Turn 8 and sent her spinning into the barriers. Felbermayr ultimately finished 10th, scoring one point. 

Felbermayr became the series’ Sauber-supported driver after Carrie Schreiner departed the series at the end of last year upon completing two seasons.

Schreiner, who is now a team ambassador for Sauber, has been giving Felbermayr guidance. The 18-year-old also receives support from Allan McNish, a former F1 driver and three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner who has held leadership roles at Audi, the owner of Sauber, for more than a decade.

“It’s such a privilege to be a part of them, and they help me so much, especially Allan McNish. He taught me … from karting to now,” Felbermayr said.

“He helped me to make the switch from karting to here as best as possible, because he also knows that it’s not easy.  

“But also when I’m going home, I have all the support I need. When I’m on the race track, anything I need, they are here for me, the whole team. I think it’s such a great team.” 

Interview by Calla Kra-Caskey

Header photo credit: Glenn Dunbar / LAT Images