F1: The Academy

The Fast Lane and the Glass Ceiling

I’ve watched F1: The Academy twice now, and each time I’m struck by the same contradiction: the cars are moving at 160 mph, but the real race—the one that matters—is happening in the silence between the laps. The series, a seven-part Netflix docuseries following the 2024 F1 Academy season, is ostensibly about speed, competition, and the push to get a woman back on the Formula 1 grid.

But what lingers isn’t the roar of the engines or the blur of the checkered flag. It’s the way the camera lingers on Abbi Pulling’s hands as she grips the steering wheel, knuckles white, her father watching from the garage with an expression that oscillates between pride and terror. It’s the way Lia Block, daughter of the late rally legend Ken Block, stares at the track like it’s a puzzle she can’t quite solve.

It’s the way the Al Qubaisi sisters—Amna and Hamda—whisper to each other in Arabic before a race, their voices barely audible over the hum of the paddock, as if they’re reminding themselves why they’re here.

This isn’t just a sports documentary. It’s a portrait of what it means to be seen in a space that wasn’t built for you.

Nicola Barnes, the series’ director, has a knack for finding the human pulse in high-stakes environments. Her previous work—Race Across the World, We Are Newcastle United—suggests a fascination with competition as a crucible for personal transformation, and F1: The Academy is no different. But where Drive to Survive thrives on manufactured drama and the soap-opera dynamics of F1’s billion-dollar teams, Barnes’ series feels like something rawer, more intimate.

There are no billionaires here, no Red Bull vs. Mercedes power struggles. Instead, we get 15 young women, most of them in their early 20s, racing for a shot at a future that has historically excluded them.

The stakes aren’t just about winning a championship; they’re about proving that they belong in a sport that has spent decades pretending they don’t.

That tension—between belonging and exclusion—is the series’ most compelling thread, but it’s also where F1: The Academy stumbles. Motorsport.com’s review puts it bluntly: the show “rarely explains itself.” We’re dropped into the middle of the F1 Academy season with little context about how this series fits into the broader motorsport ladder, or what it even means to “cut it” in this world.

Susie Wolff, the managing director of F1 Academy and one of the series’ executive producers, delivers a line that should land with the weight of a manifesto: “If you can’t cut it in F1 Academy, there won’t be much of a motorsport career left for you.” But the series never unpacks what “cutting it” entails. Is it about lap times? Sponsorship dollars?