In mid-September, Jade Jacquet became the first woman to win a race outright in French F4. A month later, she spoke with Feeder Series in Austin about the confidence the victory had given her and how she’s using it in F1 Academy.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

On 19 September 2026, Jade Jacquet made history. With a steely defense against karting world champion Thibaut Ramaekers, she became the first woman to stand atop the French F4 podium.

In her words: ‘My best race ever.’

“That’s a really tough track in Lédenon, because it’s really up and down and it’s really physical,” she told Feeder Series, “so this was the most challenging part of this race. And also [to] focus on my driving and don’t look at Ramaekers who was behind. Like, just focus on my driving, that was the hardest part.”

After qualifying 10th, her best-ever result in the series, Jacquet started the reverse-grid race from pole. A strong start kept her in first at the end of the first lap. After an extended mid-race safety car period,, Jacquet controlled the restart and pulled out a gap of 1.62s over the final four laps to take victory.

Not only was it Jacquet’s first single-seater victory, but it was her first top-10 finish in single-seaters, full stop. The Frenchwoman has split 2026 between her rookie season of F1 Academy and second season of French F4. While she hadn’t scored in either series until that point – and dual campaigns aren’t officially allowed in French F4 so, as such, she has competed as a guest driver ineligible for points in the series – it was a breakthrough weekend both for her personal morale and in the record books.

Heading into F1 Academy’s Austin round, Jacquet was the only full-time driver in the series yet to score points. It proved to be the weekend she would change that.

“I think it’s all about the confidence, because I know I can win a race with good drivers and I know I can be fast, so that really gave me more confidence,” she said in Austin on Thursday before the weekend. “It’s an experience. If I have to start on pole on a reverse grid or whatever, I have the experience to know how to manage a race like this.”

She put herself in prime position for her second single-seater win just two days later before being taken out in a collision, but her declaration alone showed how much things had changed since the start of the season. Jacquet is the second-youngest driver on this year’s F1 Academy grid, and before 2026, she had never raced outside of France in karting or cars. It was a difficult transition.

“At the beginning, that’s crazy. And it’s still crazy. Like in Texas, it’s amazing,” she said. “Shanghai was a massive change. The beginning is hard, and also I have to learn the English, because in France we don’t really speak English. So all of this stuff was hard to manage.”

Unlike French F4, F1 Academy plays the opening act to F1 itself. Beyond just the jet lag, the international attention takes some adjustment. With the series’ millions of followers – and a whole additional day of track action added at COTA to accommodate the busy schedule – more people know Jacquet’s name than ever.

“It was also the mental side with all the pressure of the F1 Academy that was hard to manage. Now it’s a bit more fine.”

That’s not to say the pressure is gone, but Jacquet has got better at dealing with it.

“If you think like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in an F1 weekend’ and don’t focus on your driving, it can’t work,” she said. “You really have to just focus on yourself and don’t think about all the stuff around you.”

“It’s a lot of learning during the season. I did some mistakes that I would not do next year, so I think it’s very interesting to learn all of these new tracks, new environment,” she added. “And it’s been a bit complicated, like a roller coaster.”

Jacquet started the season off by qualifying 13th in Shanghai, the position where she also finished the reverse-grid race. In the feature race, she locked up and collided with Esmee Kosterman, drawing a five-place grid penalty for the following round in Montréal. That penalty forced her to start from last in the first race, and a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane in the second meant she came away with two 12th-place finishes. She rounded out the weekend with 13th in the feature race.

In Silverstone, Jacquet qualified last. After stalling on the grid, she was unable to make up positions in the first race; in the main race, she was able to climb to 13th. She took her first top 10 qualifying position in Zandvoort, finishing the wet-to-dry session in ninth, but a crash with teammate Lisa Billard in the reverse-grid race scuppered her chance for points before she dropped to 11th in the feature.

The Montréal and Silverstone rounds in particular were complicated by the fact that ART Grand Prix is one of the several teams running a rookie-only lineup. When neither Jacquet nor her teammates Kaylee Countryman and Billard had driven the circuit in a previous year or during in-season testing, there was less information for the team to use.

“Maybe it’s a disadvantage, but we share all of the data and we work together to see who has the best compromise, and we work on that,” she said.

And it’s not just support from her F1 Academy team. Along with the engineers at ART, Jacquet receives backing from Williams, a spot she took over when Lia Block graduated from the series. Her support there includes mentorship from Jamie Chadwick – the three-time champion of F1 Academy’s effective predecessor, W Series – and Harrison Scott, a Williams simulator driver.

“With Williams, we did a lot of physical training with my performance coach Sacha [Smith]. We did a lot of sim also at the factory with Michael [Preston]. And they are here to help me on all the sides that I need,” she said. “With ART we did a lot of sim. With my engineer we work a lot on the tracks to know exactly what I have to do when we arrive on track because we only have one FP, and that’s a bit complicated. They help me a lot to develop my driving, and it’s much better.”

“In Shanghai for the start, Jamie gave me some advice, like to go on the outside or the inside,” Jacquet added. “She was there also in Silverstone. It’s nice to work with a driver also because she can give me some advice that’s really good. I had also Harrison Scott, who helped me in Silverstone.”

All of those factors had been in place since the start of the season. Until September, Jacquet’s best French F4 results – similar to those in F1 Academy – were two 12th places. When a strong qualifying launched her to the top of the reversed grid for race two at Lédenon, she seized the opportunity and claimed the win. After the French F4 season wrapped up in October, all roads led to Austin.

“My driving is improving,” Jacquet said. “I’m more consistent, I am more fast.”

“My goal for the rest of the season is to obviously score some points. If I can fight on the reverse grid, be in the quali in the top eight, it would be great.”

Even though she faced an engine issue in the weekend’s sole practice session, Austin was her best qualifying of the season. Under the weekend’s expanded, three-race format, Jacquet’s best lap was good enough for seventh, and her second-best lap was good enough for sixth. Her qualifying performance also put her on the front row for the reverse-grid race.

“I think we can fight for the win,” she said of the reverse-grid race after qualifying. “Obviously to start P6 and P7 we can score some important points, and that’s the goal for the weekend.”

The scoring she had down. Despite dropping a few positions in the opening race, she brought the car home in 10th for her first F1 Academy point of the season. And in the main race, she kept a cool head as drivers in front of her collided to come home in fourth, just behind her teammate Billard.

But the win will have to wait. Jacquet held second behind Ferreira at the start of the reverse-grid race before diving up the inside at Turn 12 to take the lead. At Turn 15, however, Ferreira collided with Jacquet in an attempted re-overtake, ending the Frenchwoman’s race. It was an early end to what certainly could’ve been a second victory in just over a month.

Still, if Jacquet’s current form continues in Vegas, she’ll have one last shot at another win in 2026. And that’s a statement that would’ve been surprising to Jacquet and F1 Academy viewers alike as recently as August.

Whether her turnaround in form is enough to ensure her return to the F1 Academy grid remains to be seen.

“I hope, with Williams. I can’t tell you because I don’t know yet,” she confessed.

She has, at the very least, put herself on the right path.

Header photo courtesy of Atlassian Williams F1 Team