Esmee Kosterman confirmed as F1 Academy wild card for Zandvoort

Dutch racer Esmee Kosterman will make her F1 Academy debut as the wild card entry for the championship’s only European round at Zandvoort, driving the TeamViewer-backed Hitech car with a livery celebrating female innovators.

Photo credits: JEP

Dutch racer Esmee Kosterman has been announced as the F1 Academy wild card for the fifth and only European round of the 2025 season.

Kosterman, whose main racing program is in British F4, will drive the third Hitech TGR machine in partnership with remote connectivity solutions provider TeamViewer, which joins the F1 Academy list of sponsors. The Dutch driver, who previously raced at Zandvoort in British F4 last July in preparation for her F1 Academy debut, succeeds fellow wild cards Shi Wei, Farah Al Yousef, Ava Dobson and Mathilda Paatz.

Kosterman joined the Wera Tools British F4 Championship grid after completing a testing program with the experienced JHR Developments squad. She had made her single-seater debut in the 2024 Indian F4 Championship, where she secured two top-10 finishes at the Madras International Circuit.

She also has experience in closed-wheel racing, having competed in the Ford Fiesta Sprint Cup Benelux, where she became the first woman to win in the series, before stepping up to the Dutch Supercar Challenge, Lamera Cup and the BMW M2 Cup — thus bringing a diverse skill set to single-seaters.

In 2025, Kosterman has so far entered four rounds in British F4, including the non-championship event at Silverstone supporting the British GP. Making her debut at the Silverstone season opener, she impressed with a best result of 11th, completing clean races to gain vital experience.

She then made a last-minute return at Snetterton for her second appearance in the series, where she bounced back from a difficult qualifying to gain eight places in Race 1 and finish a weekend-best of 13th. She scored her first championship points in Race 2, moving up four positions in the reverse-grid contest.

At the non-championship British GP round, Kosterman secured a best finish of 17th, before returning at Zandvoort for her home race, where she again placed 17th in a highly competitive field.

For her F1 Academy debut, Esmee will rely on the support of TeamViewer, which has designed a special-edition livery highlighting female innovators and changemakers in its Visibility Drives Change campaign. The car will feature over 200 women across a wide range of industries. With 86% of women believing that visible female leaders are key to workplace gender equality, Kosterman’s Hitech Tatuus will also carry the number 86.

“It is our ambition to drive meaningful change both on and off the track,” commented Faith Wheller, VP of Brand Integrated Marketing and Sports Partnerships at TeamViewer. “The opportunity to support Esmee in her F1 Academy debut while driving a car featuring role models is the next step in achieving this. Our research found that not being able to see someone like you in a senior role made it harder to pursue a career in your chosen field. This is why it was so important to showcase so many role models on the car.”

So far in 2025, the top-placed wild card has been Mathilda Paatz, with an 11th-place finish in Montreal. In 2024, Nina Gademan’s fourth place at Zandvoort remained the most successful outing for a wild card in F1 Academy history — and like her compatriot, Esmee Kosterman will now aim to fight for a full-time seat in the championship in the future.