Red Bull has announced GB4 championship runner-up Alisha Palmowski will join its driver roster for the 2025 season of F1 Academy.

18-year-old Palmowski stunned in her F1 Academy debut in Qatar, with the wildcard entry securing a full-time grid slot for the 2025 F1 Academy championship.

Alisha Palmowski impresses Red Bull on Formula Academy debut

Palmowski was announced as the wildcard entry for a one-off appearance in F1 Academy at last month’s Qatar Grand Prix, to continue on from her impressive showing in the GB4 championship this season.

Impressing at the in-season test at the Lusail Circuit, Palmowski scored a very solid fifth place in Race 1 and had secured a fourth-place grid slot for Race 2 – only for that race to be cancelled due to barrier damage from another support race.

Palmowski’s form in 2024 has resulted in her securing a full-time F1 Academy seat for 2025, where she will drive the Red Bull Racing Pepe Jeans Academy programme car.

Hailing from Derbyshire in the UK, and of Polish heritage, Palmowski is a confident and bubbly character who is brimming with excitement as she sat down with PlanetF1.com in the paddock over her eye-catching Qatar weekend.

Having completed her first season in single-seaters as a championship runner-up in GB4, scoring three race victories and multiple podiums, Palmowski was also selected as the BRDC’s Rising Star, and spoke of how her relationship with Red Bull began following her eye-catching start to the season.

“We joined GB4 this season, my first year in single-seaters, with aspirations of being spotted by an F1 team and getting the opportunity to join the F1 Academy grid for next season,” she said.

“We were lucky enough to be contacted by Red Bull quite early on, actually, it was back in around March and April when they saw my testing results, and I won my opening debut race at Oulton Park at the start of the season.

“So they recognised that I might have some potential to be a potential candidate for F1 Academy.

“Since I joined the team…it’s only been a short matter of time, I’ve not been with the team long at all, but they’ve been absolutely incredible. I could not have had more support from every single aspect, and done a lot of F1 sim work with them.

“The treatment we get – the F1 Academy drivers for Red Bull – we get equal treatment to the Red Bull Junior drivers, so the access that we get to the facilities is absolutely equal, and it’s fantastic.

“I can totally see how it’s going to help me develop into the next stage of my career and develop me as a driver.”

Asked whether she’s had the chance to meet Red Bull’s senior management yet – F1 team boss Christian Horner and team consultant Helmut Marko – Palmowski smiled.

“I’ve met Christian, yes – that was part of my selection process actually, to meet Christian, and he was so supportive and just so lovely,” she said.

“They’re multiple Formula 1 World Champions and they’re a team that I’ve looked up to and admired for years, ever since I can remember.

“The environment that I’ll be in now is just going to help me develop so much as a driver.

“There are not enough words to explain how grateful I am for the opportunity. What’s become evidently clear to me is that Red Bull aren’t where they are by accident. There’s so much work that goes on behind the scenes that a normal person without access, maybe that I’ve now got, would ever realise – there are so many people within the team.

“There’s such a great atmosphere as well within the whole team. As I say, I’ve only been involved for a short space of time, but there’s such a great family feel around the team.

“Everybody’s been so welcoming and friendly to me and genuinely wants to help me progress and improve.

“On the sim, and they’ve been to a couple of test days that I’ve done as well, so they’ve been able to watch my driving style and technique and the number of drivers that Red Bull have had – some of the elites of the elite, they’ve got the best drivers in the world and some of their data, so to be able to compare to them and see and identify weaknesses, identify strengths, it’s been absolutely fantastic.

“It’s the sort of access that I’ve never had before to develop myself further.”

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How has F1 Academy challenge begun?

Our interview, taking place on the roof of Red Bull’s hospitality unit in Qatar, took place just hours after Palmowski secured her fifth-place finish at the first time of asking.

Holding her own against more seasoned campaigners like Hamda Al-Qubaisi, Maya Weug, Abbi Pulling, Doriane Pin, and Bianca Bustamante, Palmowski had made full use of the F1 Academy car’s potential despite her relative lack of experience.

“I absolutely love the F1 Academy cars!” she replies, when asked about her impression of the machine.

“They are very similar to what I’ve been racing this year in the GB4 championship in the UK, although the GB4 cars are the Gen 1 F4 cars, whereas the F1 Academy cars are the newer Gen 2 version cars.

“So there are minor differences in terms of brakes and aero but, overall, they are very similar. But I absolutely love the car.”

Asked to compare the car’s capabilities against that of the GB4 machine, she explained the primary difference was the grip levels available.

“Especially on a race weekend like this, for example, when you’ve got F1 going round and laying rubber down,” she said.

“For example, on my first time experiencing the track with F1 rubber down, there was so much more grip, and amazing to feel – I think we went, in terms of lap times, around two seconds quicker than we achieved in testing a couple of weeks ago, just purely because of the F1 rubber.

“So it really does show the adaptability that’s needed on a race weekend like this, with the different cars going out on track and the different rubber being laid down. So it’s a challenge. I do lack a little bit of experience with this sort of change in this environment, compared to the other championship drivers, being the wild card entry. But it’s a great opportunity for me to experience what it is like and then try and learn.”

Female-segregated championships have divided opinion in recent years, ever since the advent of the trail-blazing W Series (now defunct) – a series which allowed the F1-backed F1 Academy to grow its wings.

Palmowski reckons F1 Academy is performing its primary duty – namely of giving promising female talent a springboard into an established junior category. 2023 Champion Marta Garcia partook in the 2024 FRECA championship with Prema following her win, although couldn’t manage to score any points with her Iron Dames squad.

“The platform F1 Academy is on – it’s on the global stage supporting Formula 1 – so it really gives young females an opportunity to showcase what we can do on a global stage, with a lot more eyes on us to try and help us to the next stage in our career,” she said.

“The series really is a great opportunity to promote genuine change within the industry – it is obviously a male-dominated sport.

“I think sometimes people get the wrong impression of F1 Academy, it’s totally not about parachuting females up and giving them a free pass to Formula 1, for example.

“That is the end goal – to get a female from F1 Academy into F1, but it’s simply a stepping stone to help us get the opportunity to try and showcase what we can do and get the next step in the single-seater ladder. So it’s such a great opportunity for me to be able to be on that package and hopefully further my career forward.”

But, while Palmowski may be very inexperienced when she lines up to start next season’s F1 Academy championship, she has no intentions of taking things easy.

“I’m a racing driver, so naturally, I’d love to win,” she said.

“I think all 15 drivers on the grid would say that they’d love to be champion. You’ve got to believe that as well, you’ve got to have that inner belief.

“But, equally, I do know that it is, realistically, going to be a big challenge, being a new driver to the series.

“There’s going to be a lot of new drivers next year. I think it’s eight or nine, so a lot of us will be in the same boat but we’re expecting some drivers to return that have been at a strong standard already this year.

“So, naturally, returning to some of the circuits that they’ve been through this year, they do have a little bit of an advantage and the upper hand.

“But I see that as a great opportunity for me to push myself and see how I can compare against those.

“I’ll be going for as many wins as possible, and if I could be Champion, then that would be fantastic.

“But I just want to learn and progress as well. It’s still a very early stage in my career, but it’s just such a great opportunity for me to develop and learn and progress into a better driver.”

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