Palmowski Clinches F1 Academy Title in Austin
Alisha Palmowski has won the F1 Academy championship. The Briton finished second in Saturday's reverse-grid race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and that result was enough to settle the title with races still to run.
A reverse-grid race flips the running order, so the fastest qualifiers start near the back and have to work their way forward. Denmark's Alba Larsen won it, the first F1 Academy victory of her career. France's Lisa Billard, 17, took third.
Only one rival could still mathematically overhaul Palmowski before the race. Austria's Emma Felbermayr was that driver, but she finished fourth, and Palmowski's lead could no longer be reached. BBC Sport reported the result and the arithmetic behind it.
Palmowski is 20 and was born in Glossop. She is the youngest champion in the series, which is open only to women and acts as a stepping stone into senior single-seater racing. She is also the second British driver to win the title, after Abbi Pulling in 2024. She races for Campos Racing and is part of the Red Bull driver academy.
Her season has been built on a steady run at the front. She has won five of the first 11 races, and the fifth came in the Opening Race in Austin, the first race of the weekend. Her win there was the one that brought her to the brink of the title. Formula 1 covered that race in detail.
What makes the title notable is how early it arrived. The championship was decided before Sunday's feature race, the longer main event of the weekend. There is still a round to go. The season finale takes place in Las Vegas in November, and the points table will be complete then.
For the rest of the field, the weekend was about the places behind the title. Larsen's win moved her up the order, and Billard's third-place finish gave the 17-year-old a podium in a race that had started from the back of the grid. Felbermayr's fourth place left her with one of the strongest finishes of the weekend, even though it was not enough to change the outcome.
For anyone new to the series, the simplest way to follow it is to watch the points. Each race awards places a set number of points, and the driver with the most at the end of the season is champion. Palmowski's Austin weekend made that picture clear: she needed to finish ahead of her closest challenger on points, and she did.
Palmowski becomes the latest British driver to hold the crown, and the first in the series' history to win it at 20. Her title is decided. The remaining races will show how far the rest of the field can close the gap.
