Abbi Pulling carried her momentum from her F1 Academy championship victory in 2024 into a positive 2025 GB3 campaign and Formula E test outings with Nissan. At the Miami E-Prix earlier this year, she sat down with Feeder Series to discuss her experience testing in Formula E, her future plans, and her view on how women’s participation in motorsport has changed since she began her career. 

By Archie Harper and Isabelle Chandler

Finishing 10th in the 2025 with just one podium may not, on paper, have been how Abbi Pulling would have wanted to start her post–F1 Academy career in GB3. But the result itself was hardly going to be her greatest achievement of the year.

In 2025, Pulling did something few others at that level have: secure a testing position with a professional open-wheel racing team. Alongside her full-season GB3 programme with Rodin Motorsport, Pulling joined the Nissan Formula E outfit as a rookie and simulator driver on a multi-year deal. She previously had topped the timesheets at the Formula E women’s test in 2024 for the team, even beating three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick along the way.

In the months after formally taking on the role, the Briton appeared at the 2025 rookie test in Berlin, where she finished 17th, and the 2025 women’s test in Valencia, where she finished second. So far this year, she has appeared in the rookie free practice session at the Miami E-Prix in January and in the rookie test at Madrid as she continues to get to grips with the complex electric machinery. 

“I felt really comfortable in the car straight away,” she told Feeder Series shortly after her Miami practice outing. “I was actually surprised with the grip available to begin with.”

Pulling set 23 laps of the 2.32-kilometre circuit during the test and brought up the rear among the 11 drivers, 1.420 seconds behind pacesetter Zak O’Sullivan of Envision Racing. Notably, she had a spin entering the back straight towards the end of the session, which affected her running. While not an ideal way to wrap up the session after a confident start, she made clear that the timesheets did not tell the full story.

“I then had my little excursion, which was frustrating, and flat-spotted the tyres a little bit. And then [it] affected my running in 350 [kilowatts] as well as traffic,” she said. “It was all going really well up until the last couple laps, which is when we got our quali laps and push laps in.

“But overall, a really great experience. Happy to be back with Nissan. On paper, it’s frustrating. It doesn’t necessarily look as glamorous, but behind the scenes, the team and I know that everything before that point was going really well. The step from where I was the first time in the car and to Valencia and to now is big, and I’m just looking forward to continuing to work on that.

“Just next time, I’ll finish a 350 lap!” she joked.

That Pulling is in this position, speaking to Feeder Series after a practice session in a professional series, seemed unfathomable five years ago. Not because she lacked the talent – she finished above the likes of Roman Bilinski and Rafael Villagómez, both now F2 drivers, in her maiden British F4 campaign in 2020. But the following year, when she was once thought to be a potential championship contender, she was hit with a roadblock mid-season: a lack of budget, which meant she had to withdraw from the championship after round six at Thruxton. 

Despite this significant barrier to her racing prospects, Pulling had a lifeline. As one of the biggest up-and-coming female talents on the ladder, she caught the attention of the all-female W Series championship and had already secured a place as a reserve driver for the championship’s 2021 season. Once she got a mid-season call-up, she took full advantage, scoring her first pole position and podium in Austin. By finishing seventh overall, ahead of 10 full-time drivers, she automatically qualified for the 2022 season, in which she took a further two podiums on the path to fourth in the championship. 

In 2023, following the W Series’ demise, she once again contested an all-female championship, this time the new F4-spec F1 Academy. It was a step down from the FRegional-level machinery Pulling had raced the year before, but armed with a season and a half of prior F4 experience, the Alpine-backed Rodin driver took seven podiums during the season and secured fifth overall in the championship. 

Then in 2024, everything changed for Pulling. She ran a reduced campaign in British F4 with Rodin, notably becoming the first woman to win a British F4 race and taking two more podiums en route to seventh overall despite missing two rounds. It would be in F1 Academy, however, that she made the biggest impact. She beat her closest rival – Prema’s Doriane Pin, who succeeded her as 2025 champion – by 121 points and stood on the podium for every single race in the championship, taking four second places and one third place alongside her nine total wins. 

Stereotypically, female racing drivers have reached success at a much later age than their male counterparts. Pulling was 21 when she romped to the F1 Academy title, while most male drivers who are winning F4-spec series are between the ages of 16 and 18. The F1 Academy grid, however, is becoming a stronger reflection of other F4 series. The average age of the current F1 Academy grid was 18.8 years old at the start of the season, the youngest driver having only turned 16 in January – down from 20.6 in 2023. 

Younger drivers need robust development structures in place to grow. To that end, from the start of the 2027 season, F1 Academy will give drivers an exemption to race for a third year in the series if doing so would be seen as beneficial for their development. Pulling would be unable to return to the series, having already won the championship, but what does she think about the rule change for future young drivers in her shoes?

“The average age is getting lower and lower, which is great. It’s great to get that experience at a young age. Of course, I competed in W Series when I was 18, 19, so that put me in front of a big stage at a young age. And these girls are doing it at 15, 16, now, so it’s even more [of] a younger age to develop and learn,” she said.

“They’re a step ahead. I always say I wish I was 8 years old again, as it would be great to be on that kind of trajectory.… Now, when you think of it, 14-year-olds, it’s insane. But [it’s] such an exciting landscape, and the future is bright and the future is exciting, and I just wish everyone the best and hope they can get through the male-dominated sport that we’re living in.”

Where exactly they end up is hard to predict. It is becoming increasingly harder for up-and-coming drivers to secure seats in F1, so many have pivoted to championships such as Formula E instead of chasing the F1 dream fully. 

Formula E has flirted with the idea of introducing a dedicated junior series for the growing number of drivers focussing their ambitions on the all-electric championship. For the moment, though, nothing is in firm development, making the importance of establishing connections with teams ever more critical. 

“I think what Nissan are doing with me, focusing a lot on the simulator and then putting me in for these rookie sessions, is a really great way to learn,” Pulling said. “It’s not a driver academy, but [it’s] the only way you can really train someone up in the Formula E car and get actual experience.”

The sessions Nissan have allowed Pulling to run have also given her a chance to benchmark herself against some of the most experienced and talented drivers in junior single-seaters recently. At the most recent rookie test in Madrid, the line-up featured drivers with a range of backgrounds, from former F1 drivers to F4 hotshots to the reigning DTM champion. Among the series’ 20 full-time competitors, meanwhile, are five ex-F1 drivers and 12 further competitors who have won races in the second tier.

“Most of the drivers in here are ex-F1 or they pair it with WEC or are ex-F2. They’re very experienced. Even in the rookie session, I’m mixing with Théo Pourchaire, who’s done WEC and won F2,” Pulling said. “It’s quite intimidating, to an extent, but I think that just shows how great it was in the 300kW mode that I was rubbing shoulders with them and elbows with them.”

Interview by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Malcolm Griffiths / LAT Images