The F1 Academy is an all-female racing championship for younger drivers; the inaugural 2023 season will feature five teams, each entering three cars to make up a 15-strong grid; the season finale will serve as a support event at the US Grand Prix in October
Thursday 23 February 2023 09:05, UK
The race calendar for the inaugural 2023 season of the F1 Academy has been announced, with a total of 21 races over seven rounds, including a season finale which will serve as a support event at the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
The brand-new all-female championship is for younger drivers and will feature five teams - ART, Campos, Carlin, MP Motorsport and Prema - each entering three cars to make up a 15-strong grid.
The 15 competing cars will take to the track for the first time on April 11-12 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for an official test session, with the season getting under way on April 28-29 in Spielberg, Austria.
Spain will host two events in May, in Valencia and Barcelona, with summer stops in the Netherlands (Zandvoort), Italy (Monza) and France (Le Castellet), before the season-ender in the US on October 20-22.
There will also be 13 more days of testing throughout the season, to be revealed in the coming weeks.
Bruno Michel, general manager of the F1 Academy, said: "Our goal was to be able to race on as many Formula 1 Grand Prix tracks as possible, with circuits that could be a great challenge for the drivers.
"The teams know these layouts very well, so they will be able to help their young talents get to grips quickly.
"We had announced that F1 Academy would be racing alongside Formula 1 at one event, so it's fantastic to be part of the F1 Grand Prix package in Austin, where we will also conclude the first season, in front of the F1 paddock and the American crowd."
Each race weekend will consist of two free practice sessions of 40 minutes each, followed by two qualifying sessions of 15 minutes each.
All events will have three races: Races 1 and 3 will be 30 minutes long, and Race 2 will be 20 minutes. Qualifying 1 will set the Grid for Race 1 and Qualifying 2 will set the grid for Race 3.
The first eight finishers in Qualifying 1 will start Race 2 in reverse order, cars finishing in ninth position and below will start in the position they qualified in that session.
The drivers who take pole position for Races 1 and 3 following the final classification of the Qualifying sessions will be awarded with two points.
In each race, one point will be awarded to the driver who achieves the fastest lap time, providing she was in the top 10 positions of the final race classification.
