Alisha Palmowski won the F1 Academy Feature Race at Zandvoort on Sunday, her fourth victory in seven rounds this season. She started from pole and held the lead through fourteen laps, finishing 2.8 seconds ahead of Aurelia Nobels. The win moves Palmowski to 142 points in the championship, 25 points clear of second-place Chloe Chong with three rounds remaining.
The result matters because F1 Academy is the only all-female single-seater championship directly backed by Formula 1, and Palmowski is now the clear favorite to claim the inaugural season's second title. Rodin Motorsport—a team funded by New Zealand billionaire David Dicker—has positioned Palmowski as the blueprint for their talent pipeline. Dicker's operation runs Formula 2 and Formula 3 entries alongside F1 Academy, and a championship here opens conversations about graduation pathways that don't exist for most women in motorsport. The $150,000 prize fund for the championship winner is secondary; the political capital inside Liberty Media's paddock is the real asset.
Sponsor attention follows wins. Palmowski's fourth victory gives brand partners at Rodin a clean narrative for Q4 renewals, particularly in markets where women's sports investment is no longer optional for automotive and finance brands. The championship's broadcast package—carried on F1TV and select Sky Sports windows—delivers 1.2 million cumulative viewers per round, a modest figure but demographically narrow enough that CPM calculations work for prestige watchmakers and luxury travel brands testing women's motorsport for the first time. Palmowski's consistency (four wins, two second-place finishes, one retirement) makes her the safest bet for hero content through Abu Dhabi.
The championship's structure—21 drivers across seven teams, all racing identical Tatuus F4 chassis with a spec Alpine engine—means team budget disparities are compressed. Rodin's edge comes from Dicker's willingness to fly engineers between F2 rounds and F1 Academy weekends, a luxury smaller teams can't match. Palmowski's race engineer previously worked in Formula Renault Eurocup; that experience gap shows in tire management during feature races, where degradation separates podiums from points.
Chong, her closest rival, drives for Prema Racing and has won twice this season. Prema's commercial infrastructure is larger—sponsors include Puma and Italian energy company Eni—but Chong hasn't finished higher than fourth in the last three races. The 25-point gap with three rounds remaining (Monza, Yas Marina, and a yet-to-be-announced finale) means Chong needs Palmowski to falter twice while winning out herself. Possible, but the odds are narrowing.
Watch for driver announcements in Formula 4 and Regional Formula 3 series between now and November. F1 Academy's stated purpose is graduation, but only three drivers from the 2023 season secured funded seats in higher categories. Palmowski's management team—based in Munich and led by a former DTM commercial director—has been in paddock conversations with Hitech GP and Van Amersfoort Racing, both of which run European Formula 4 programs. A 2025 F4 seat would cost between €250,000 and €350,000 depending on testing allocation; Palmowski's family wealth (her father runs a logistics business in Bavaria) and potential sponsor interest from Rodin's network make that figure manageable. Also watch for any movement on F1 Academy's rumored expansion to ten teams for 2025, which would add eight seats and require new team partnerships—conversations that typically begin in Q4.
The next round is at Monza in two weeks, paired with the Italian Grand Prix. Palmowski has never raced at Monza; Chong finished second there in Italian Formula 4 three years ago.
The takeaway
Palmowski's fourth F1 Academy win puts her **25 points** clear with three rounds left, making her the safe bet for sponsors and the likeliest graduate to funded F4 seats in 2025.
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