Emily Cotty: "We are improving every weekend"
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
One of the youngest drivers on the Italian F4 grid, 15-year-old Emily Cotty is in her first full-time year as an F4 driver. Despite minimal experience prior to 2025, the British-New Zealand driver has been exceeding expectations ever since joining R-ace GP. Here's her journey so far to one of the most competitive F4 fields.
One of the youngest drivers on the Italian F4 grid, 15-year-old Emily Cotty, currently races for R-ace GP's in her first full-time year as an F4 driver. However, her path to Formula 4 is unusual compared to her peers.
Following her first taste of karting at a birthday party, Cotty took on horse riding until 2022, when she eventually focused to karting as a full-time committment. Racing mainly in the British Kart Championship and the Super One Series, Cotty achieved the most success in the latter by being crowned Junior Rotax champion last year.
"Winning the championship last year in Super One was quite a good result," Cotty said. "It came down to the last round with a six point gap, which was a bit stressful but we came out on top, so it was quite a good end to the year."
"Coming from karting to cars was definitely a big jump. From racing in the UK, with tough competition, to F4 was definitely a big learning curve to adapt to the new car but we are improving every weekend, getting better and faster so we're aiming to continue on this trajectory for the rest of the season."
During the end of 2024, Cotty also made her single-seater debut, racing in the penultimate round of the British F4 season at Silverstone for Phynsis by Argenti. In a weekend where adverse weather forced race two to be postponed to the final round, Cotty kept herself out of trouble to finish in the top 20 in both races on her maiden outing in cars.
Before 2024 came to a close, Cotty also competed in the final two rounds of the Formula Trophy UAE season for AGI Sport. Racing at the famed Yas Marina Circuit both times, Cotty took a best result of 15th in the penultimate race of the season and concluded the season 23rd in points, one spot ahead of current F1 Academy driver, Ella Lloyd.
Remaining in the Middle East for the beginning of 2025, Cotty joined R-ace GP as the sole rookie in the team's four-car line-up alongside Alex Powell, Emanuele Olivieri and Oleksandr Savinkov.
Following a difficult start to the year, Cotty broke through in the reverse-grid race at Dubai to finish 12th and score her first points of the year from 20th on the grid - a performance that put her on the radar in one of F4's most competitive fields globally. The following round at Yas Marina was also promising, with Cotty starting 16th but spending most of the race inside the top 10, only getting demoted to 11th on the last lap by Tomass Stolcermanis.
Reflecting on both points finishes, Cotty said: "It was a great result in Dubai to come from quite far back in the field to P12. We maximized our performance on the new tyres in the reverse grid race and it was great to get a good result out of the weekend. Then we also got some more points in Abu Dhabi, where I was P10 for most of it until the last lap, so it was a bit frustrating to miss out on a top 10, but in the end we got P11 which were valuable points for the championship, so it was good."
Cotty finished 21st in the overall standings and 7th in the rookie standings with two rookie podiums to her name, considering the season as a "great experience", in which the team helped her "improve throughout the season" on her way to her maiden points in single-seaters.
Staying with the French team to compete in both the Italian F4 and E4 championships, Cotty took part in pre-season testing at Imola, where she gained valuable experience on her first time at the renowned circuit.
As the Italian F4 championship uses Pirelli tyres, Cotty went back to the same type of tyres that she used earlier in the year, when she made a one-off outing in the Formula Winter Series for Hitech TGR at Barcelona, where she scored a best result of 15th in race one.
Speaking of the difference between the Giti tyres, used in the Formula Trophy UAE and F4 Middle East Championship, and Pirelli, mainly used in Europe, Cotty said: "With there being a lot of night races, we had a lot of lock-ups [in the Middle East], which is really different to what we have here. Just with these tyres we have a lot more grip than we had with the Giti and getting used to the Pirelli tyres with high temperatures is a massive learning curve for everybody."
Cotty currently sits 29th in the Italian F4 standings after the first round of the season at Misano. However, the results don't tell the full story, as the British-New Zealand driver made impressive progress over the course of the weekend to finish 17th in race one and climbing from 34th on the grid in the final to finish 24th with a solid recovery drive.
With her teammates from the Middle East returning for a full season in Italian F4, along with Guy Albag joining the team, Cotty has found herself in a high-potential environment, as comparing her telemetry with reigning F4 Middle East champion Olivieri has helped her in becoming a better driver.
"It's been great to learn from my teammates, with three of them being second-year drivers and having a rookie teammate as well," Cotty concluded. "I've improved a lot by comparing their data with mine, so it's been great to learn from them."