Alisha Palmowski joins F1 Academy field for Wild Card in Qatar

GB4 Vice-Champion Alisha Palmowski, after an impressive debut single-seater season with 11 podiums and three wins, will make her F1 Academy debut as a Wild Card entry in Lusail, Qatar, at the sixth round of the championship.

Photo credits: JEP

GB4 Championship vice-campion Alisha Palmowski will make her F1 Academy race debut at the next round in Lusail, Qatar, on November 30th-December 1st for the sixth round of the 2024 season.

The 18 year old British driver is set to get behind the wheel of the fourth Prema machine, becoming the fifth Wild Card to compete in the series, sporting a F1 Academy Discover Your Drive livery, like Ella Lloyd in the previous round at Singapore.

Reema Juffali was the first Wild Card entry in F1 Academy at her home round in Saudi Arabia, before Courtney Crone and Nina Gademan competed at Miami and Zandvoort respectively.

The Wild Card entry was introduced this year to showcase local female talents at select rounds and, where drivers from the local region were not available, F1 Academy promoters selected a driver who aspire to compete in F1 Academy in the following year.

“I’m very excited to be the Wild Card Entry in Qatar, it’s an incredible opportunity and one I never could have dreamt of 12 months ago", Palmowski commented. "This will be my first race outside of the UK, and for it be on the F1 Academy grid as a support series to Formula 1 is a dream come true."

"I’d like to say a huge thank you to the team at F1 Academy, and of course Susie Wolff, for giving me this opportunity to learn and hopefully secure a seat on the grid for next year.”

Alisha completed her first season of single-seater racing in 2024 with an outstanding second place in the championship standings in the GB4 Championship.

Having graduated from the highly-competitive Ginetta Junior Championship, where she claimed 10 podium finishes in 2023, Palmowski demonstrated immediate speed right from pre-season tests and went on to make headlines with a spectacular debut at Oulton Park, securing victory in her first-ever formula race.

She returned to the podium at Silverstone with a second-place finish, followed by another top-three at Donington, before enjoying an outstanding weekend at Snetterton where she secured two wins and a second-place finish. Palmowski continued her unbroken record of podium finishes, standing on the podium again at Silverstone and Donington.

At the season finale in Brands Hatch, she was again twice on the rostrum and sealed the Vice-Champion title, at the end of one of the most impressive single seaters debuts.

Palmowski’s 2024 season thus ended with three victories, two pole positions, 11 podiums, and 16 top-five finishes in 20 races. She was the highest-finishing female driver in the series, therefore earning a €30,000 prize fund from MSV toward a potential F1 Academy seat in 2025.

At the end of the year, Alisha also had the opportunity to drive the new-gen Formula E car as she joined Envision Racing in the all-female Formula E team at the Jarama Circuit, Spain.

She was also selected as one of the 10 finalists for the 2024 Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award.