Britain’s Alisha Palmowski says that winning the F1 Academy title is “a dream come true”.
The 20-year-old finished second in Saturday’s reverse grid race at the Circuit of the Americas, which was enough to be crowned champion before Sunday’s feature race and the season finale in Las Vegas in November.
Palmowski becomes the youngest champion of the all-female development series, and is the second British driver to win the title after Abbi Pulling in 2024.
She drives for Campos Racing and is part of the Red Bull driver academy.
Glossop-born Palmowski has won five out of the 11 races held so far this season, only finishing outside of the points once during the reverse grid race at Zandvoort.
In an emotional post-race interview, she dedicated her championship win to her ill grandmother and thanked her family.
“It’s been a really special journey. I started racing when I was eight or nine years old, it was just me and my parents,” she said.
“The sacrifices that they’ve made behind the scenes, they’ve really put their lives on pause to allow me to live my dream.”
Before Saturday’s race, Austrian Emma Felbermayr was the only driver with a mathematical chance of overhauling Palmowski but fourth place was not enough to keep her hopes alive.
Denmark’s Alba Larsen took the chequered flag to secure her first F1 Academy victory, with 17-year-old Lisa Billard of France completing the podium in third.