DORIANE PIN & MAYA WEUG Lead F1 ACADEMY’s Biggest Cultural Year Yet

click to enlarge

December 30, 2025

GRRL! SUMMARY:

While DORIANE PIN and MAYA WEUG delivered a championship fight that went to the wire in Las Vegas, 2025 became the year F1 Academy proved it’s about way more than just racing. The Netflix docuseries “F1: The ACADEMY” launched with Reese Witherspoon producing, giving fans unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to what it really takes to be an F1 Academy driver. Unlike Drive to Survive’s glamour focus, this series zeroed in on the raw determination of young women fighting for their place in motorsport.
ALBA LARSEN emerged as the template for the modern F1 Academy driver, balancing her Tommy Hilfiger partnership with building a global grassroots movement through her G.I.R.L. initiative that reached over 400 girls in Denmark alone. At just 17, she’s authored a book, featured in Vogue Scandinavia, won the FIA Women in Motorsport Award, and proved you don’t have to wait until after racing to make cultural impact. Her success showed that fashion partnerships and serious racing aren’t mutually exclusive – they’re complementary.
The wild card program delivered one of the year’s best storylines when ESMEE KOSTERMAN arrived at Zandvoort with everything to prove and nothing guaranteed beyond that race. She became the highest points-scoring wild card driver of the season and her performance was so impressive that LEGO Racing signed her for their 2026 debut. Meanwhile, JOANNE CICONTE’s Wella Professionals partnership brought styling stations to the Paddock Club and helped normalize beauty services at race weekends – details that would have been dismissed as frivolous just years ago.
From Hello Kitty waving the chequered flag in Las Vegas to LEGO bouquets replacing traditional flowers on podiums, F1 Academy proved that serious driver development and cultural engagement aren’t contradictions. New partnerships with Gatorade focus on performance science specific to female athletes, while Susie Wolff’s bestselling memoir “Driven” provided the roadmap for why this series exists. The season showed that when you give talented women the platform they deserve, they’ll reshape not just racing, but sports culture entirely.