11-year old Spaniard Luna Fluxa is the latest addition to the Mercedes AMG F1 Team's Junior Programme - the first female recruit of the German squad.
While George Russell will be the first Mercedes Junior Programme graduate to a race seat in the F1 team that broke all records in the latest F1 era, the next Mercedes AMG F1 W13 launch will be a historic moment also for Luna Fluxa, 11-year-old Spanish karting driver. She will in fact officially become the first female recruit of the Junior Programme.
“It’s definitely a special year with the promotion of George, who was one of our first junior drivers since the young driver programme was reborn in 2016", said Gwen Lagrue, Driver Development Advisor for the German team.
"It’s also special because we have recruited our first female driver to the programme, with Luna who won the European Mini X30 championship last year."
Fluxa - younger sister of fellow racing drivers Lucas and Lorenzo - started racing in 2017 and has been making headlines ever since. She rose through the ranks of national karting competitions and went on to claim the 2021 IAME Euro Series in the X30 Mini class - an outstanding result for the young Spaniard, who was also the only female in the field.
Coming off a win at the Castelletto event in Italy, Fluxa sealed the title with a dominant performance in Genk, Belgium, and wrote her name among the most interesting up and coming drivers in Europe, having won events in both IAME and WSK events all around Europe.
Fluxa is a graduate of the 'Mujer y Motor' program, a commission by the Spanish Federation (RFEDA) led by Maria Lanzon, which aims at developing the female presence across all forms of motorsport.
"Every year, the programme has grown, and we are fortunate to have an incredible line-up across categories ranging from karting to F1", added James Vowles, Motorsport Strategy Director of Mercedes AMG. "We’ll be working hard to provide the best support and environment we can, enabling them to focus on the job in hand and deliver their maximum potential. The Mercedes young drivers of today, will hopefully be our champions of tomorrow.”
In 2022, Luna Fluxa will step up to the OK Junior category in karting.
The Mercedes AMG Junior Programme 2022 class also includes Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Paul Aron, Yuanpu Cui, Daniel Guinchard, Alex Powell and Frederik Vesti.